Maryland, as you know, is a good place for a thriving insurance business. Maryland's strong and diverse economy makes for an insurance market conducive to your success. National Association of Insurance Commissioners data ranks Maryland in the top half of all U.S. states in total premiums, health premiums, property and casualty premiums, and mortgage guarantee premiums while also showing nearly 50% in total premium growth over the last decade. Yet your Maryland Insurance Administration disciplinary charges threaten your Maryland insurance license and practice.
To preserve your Maryland insurance license and protect your valuable Maryland insurance practice, retain the Lento Law Firm's premier Professional License Defense Team to defend and defeat your Maryland Insurance Administration disciplinary charges. We are available in Baltimore, Columbia, Germantown, Silver Spring, Waldorf, Frederick, Ellicott City, Glen Burnie, Gaithersburg, Rockville, Dundalk, Bethesda, Bowie, Towson, Bel Air South, Severn, Aspen Hill, Wheaton, North Bethesda, and all other Maryland locations. Call 888.535.3686 or complete this contact form now for our highly qualified attorney representation and the best outcome to Maryland Insurance Administration disciplinary charges.
Maryland Insurance Administration License Authority
To retain your Maryland insurance license, you must deal with the Maryland Insurance Administration and its disciplinary officials. Maryland Insurance Code Section 2-101 creates the Maryland Insurance Administration to regulate insurance practices within the state. Section 2-103 authorizes the state's Insurance Commissioner to operate the Maryland Insurance Administration to effectively regulate insurance entities and individual producers. Section 2-108 expressly authorizes the Insurance Commissioner to conduct investigations to enforce the state's insurance code, including its insurance producer regulations. You have no way around it: you must deal with the Insurance Commissioner, Maryland Insurance Administration, and their designated disciplinary officials. We can help you do so.
Maryland Insurance Department License Requirement
You must also maintain your Maryland insurance license in the face of disciplinary charges if you wish to continue your Maryland insurance practice. Maryland Insurance Code Section 10-103 expressly requires that you obtain a Maryland Insurance Administration license to practice insurance business within the state. Maryland Insurance Code Section 10-131 provides that unlicensed insurance practice violating Section 10-103 warrants criminal misdemeanor conviction and punishment with imprisonment of up to six months and a fine up to $500 for each violation. Continuing your insurance practice after license suspension or revocation, in violation of the Insurance Commissioner's disciplinary order, can also be grounds to bar you from gaining license reinstatement or a new license. Clearly, you must not continue your insurance practice without a license. Let us help you defend and defeat your Maryland Insurance Administration disciplinary charges.
Maryland Discipline Multistate Licensure Issues
Your Maryland Insurance Administration disciplinary charges may have nationwide impacts. Maryland Insurance Code Section 10-126 provides that license discipline in another state is a ground to suspend or revoke your Maryland insurance license. Maryland's legislature adopted Section 10-126, which is patterned after the Insurance Producers Model Act and includes the same reciprocal discipline provision. All other states adopting the Model Act will have the same reciprocal discipline provision. What that means is that your discipline in Maryland may result in automatic or presumptive discipline in other states in which you hold a license. Reciprocal discipline can also bar you from obtaining a new insurance license in another state. Thus, you cannot simply transfer your insurance practice to another state, ignoring and defaulting on your Maryland disciplinary charges, without the risk of those charges effectively following you into your new state. Let us help you defend your Maryland Insurance Administration charges rather than seeking to avoid them.
Maryland Insurance Producer Misconduct Risks
Maryland's insurance practice, like insurance practice in other states, carries substantial regulatory risks. Your first challenge is the complex regulatory environment for insurance, where the many rules, standards, products, and practices can create regulatory ambiguities. Technical errors or lapses in judgment are certainly possible. Insurance agents can also face substantial temptations to cut regulatory corners because of customer demands, employer pressure, and personal financial interests. Customers can have large and precious financial interests in insuring their property and practices on the one hand and avoiding or reducing insurance coverages and premium costs on the other hand. Customers can even blame agents for the customer's own decisions not to insure substantial insurable interests. Insurance agents can also face unfair and predatory practices from competitors, including false, exaggerated, and unfair misconduct allegations aimed at stealing insurance customers and businesses. You know the challenges of the highly regulated environment in which you practice. Don't be surprised and disarmed by disciplinary charges. Instead, get our skilled defense representation.
Maryland Insurance Producer Misconduct Types
Your disciplinary circumstances are likely, in some ways, unusual or unique. Every disciplinary matter is different. Yet insurance producer misconduct also tends to follow certain patterns addressed under the Insurance Producers Model Act. Maryland's insurance producer license discipline laws largely follow the Model Act, with a few additions. Below are the Model Act's producer misconduct provisions that the Maryland Insurance Code adopts, followed by the Maryland additions. Our attorneys can help you defend and defeat any of the following types of disciplinary charges.
Misconduct Directly Affecting Insurance Customer Interests
- intentional misrepresentation of insurance contracts or insurance applications;
- falsifying insurance applications, forging signatures on applications and other insurance transaction documents, or
- misappropriating, converting, or withholding funds or property of customers or others in the course of insurance business.
Insurance Producer Fitness Issues
- conviction of any felony crime;
- license discipline by insurance boards in other states or jurisdictions;
- false statements on an insurance license application or renewal form;
- obtaining insurance licenses by other credential fraud;
- insurance licensing exam cheating with hidden notes or materials;
- failing to pay state court child support obligations or
- failing to pay state income taxes or comply with tax agency orders.
Insurance Producer Misconduct
- violating insurance agent statutes, rules, or standards;
- fraud, coercion, or dishonesty in insurance practices;
- untrustworthiness, financial irresponsibility, or incompetence;
- insurance business with an unlicensed individual;
- insurance fraud, unfair competition, or restraint of trade;
- violating insurance commissioner orders or subpoenas; or
- violating terms or conditions of discipline, including practicing after license suspension or revocation.
Additional Maryland Insurance Code Provisions
Section 10-126 of Maryland's insurance producer laws adds these grounds for discipline:
- selling automobile insurance for the insurance certificate, followed by prompt cancellation, without the intent to complete the transaction;
- misdemeanor conviction for a crime of moral turpitude;
- holding an insurance license while not intending to carry on the insurance business;
- twisting insurance policies, meaning misrepresenting the need to replace or renew coverages primarily to earn undue premiums;
- employing a fiduciary who has a felony criminal conviction or
- soliciting insurance sales for an unauthorized insurer.
Maryland Insurance Administration Reporting
The owner, officers, and managers of the licensed insurance business entity for which you work may owe a duty under Maryland Insurance Code Section 10-126 and other insurance laws and rules to report or correct your suspected misconduct. Section 10-126 authorizes Maryland Insurance Administration officials to suspend or revoke a business entity's license when the entity's owners, officers, or managers fail to comply with the same section's disciplinary provisions for individual insurance agents. Your business entity's representatives may have other reasons to report your alleged misconduct if they believe that your actions are exposing them or the business entity to civil liability, regulatory risk, or reputational harm. Retain us if you learn of a colleague, owner, or manager's concerns that you may have violated insurance rules or standards. We may be able to present your explanation and evidence in a manner that alleviates their concerns and heads off disciplinary complaints and charges.
Nature of Maryland Insurance Administration Charges
Your Maryland Insurance Administration disciplinary charges are likely deeply concerning to you. You should know well enough not to ignore or minimize those charges at the risk of suffering default sanctions. Yet you should also not assume that the charges are true or that Maryland Insurance Administration officials have substantial evidence to support them. The opposite may be true. Your disciplinary officials may be aware of your clean disciplinary record, great reputation, loyal customers, and valuable services. They may expect you to come forward with a reasonable explanation for the allegations complaining witnesses have made against you. Disciplinary charges are only allegations, not findings that you actually committed misconduct. Disciplinary charges do not automatically mean that you will suffer license discipline. While the Maryland Insurance Administration issues many enforcement actions, it does not do so in all disciplinary cases. Let us help you refute the allegations and successfully defend the charges.
Defending Maryland Insurance Administration Charges
Your disciplinary case will have facts and circumstances unique to your own insurance practice and situation. However, we may nonetheless be able to defend your Maryland Insurance Administration disciplinary charges under one or more of the following common defense approaches. Trust our attorneys to raise all appropriate defenses toward the favorable resolution of your charges.
Maryland Disciplinary Defenses Challenging Complainant Credibility
Not every complaint is credible. To carry out its statutory duties, the Maryland Insurance Administration must make its online complaint system publicly accessible while encouraging consumers and customers to share their inquiries and concerns. Yet disciplinary officials know that they must winnow credible complaints from misguided, mistaken, frivolous, or even retaliatory complaints that lack factual support and that they cannot prove. We may be able to show that the individual who complained against you had a bad memory, misunderstood your words, misconstrued your innocent motives and intentions, or is using the complaint system to coerce you, destroy your reputation, or steal your customers. We may alternatively be able to show that the complaining witness was relying on hearsay contradicted by documentation or direct observation, among other ways of challenging the complaining witness's credibility.
Maryland Disciplinary Defenses Justifying Your Actions
On the other hand, the witness complaining against you may have alleged facts and circumstances that are largely true and that Maryland Insurance Administration officials can prove through that witness or other witnesses and documentation. In that case, we may still be able to show, through your testimony, your colleagues' testimony, and the testimony of a consulting insurance professional, that your conduct met every Maryland insurance rule and standard. We may alternatively be able to show that your conduct occurred under a special set of extraordinary or emergency circumstances, altering the usual standard of care. We may also be able to show that you consulted an advisor, supervisor, or other qualified insurance professional whose advice and directions you reasonably followed as a safe harbor against questionable interpretations of rules and standards. We may finally be able to show that your conduct caused no harm or loss and that your clean disciplinary record and generally trustworthy and valuable services do not warrant discipline.
Maryland Insurance Department Procedures
Maryland Insurance Code Title 2, Subtitle 2 on Enforcement, guarantees insurance producers facing Maryland Insurance Administration disciplinary charges a formal hearing, notice of hearing, and other protective procedures. Those guarantees satisfy your constitutional right to due process, protecting your property and liberty interest in your Maryland insurance license and practice. Those procedures are not, however, self-executing. You must generally act swiftly and surely to gain any particular advantage from them. Our attorneys can invoke those protective procedures to their best strategic effect. We can invoke your formal hearing rights to present your defense evidence and challenge adverse evidence. If you have already lost your hearing, we can take the available appeal and seek judicial review and reversal as necessary. Let us exhaust your procedural rights until we obtain the best possible Maryland Insurance Administration disciplinary outcome.
Premier Maryland Insurance License Defense
If you face Maryland Insurance Administration disciplinary charges, the Lento Law Firm's premier Professional License Defense Team is available across Maryland to provide you with the skilled and experienced representation you need. Our attorneys have successfully defended hundreds of insurance producers and other professionals across Maryland and nationwide. Call 888.535.3686 or complete this contact form now for our highly qualified representation.
