The Central Insurance of Iran, the industry’s regulator, has revoked the licenses of 58 law-breaking brokers and agents, in response to complaints filed by policyholders in the last Iranian year (ended March 19, 2016).
According to CII’s Office for Supervising Professional Qualification, infringing on the rights of the insured, embezzling insurance premiums, having irregular work hours, running a second business and sending flawed documents to insurance firms were the most common reasons for revoking the licenses of brokers.
Of the total number of licenses revoked in the previous fiscal year, 25 belong to insurance brokerage companies, CII’s Office for Public and International Relations reported on Thursday. The CII last week announced that there are still 90 brokers who run a second business, warning them to quickly sort out the situation.
As per the law, insurance agents and brokers are not permitted to run any other business, apart from their main activity. The body had identified 3,000 law-breaking brokers earlier on April, giving them a three-month ultimatum to leave their second job.
The body also requires insurance firms to avoid employing board members with two or more jobs.
A total of 32,245 insurance agents are active in the country. Iran Insurance Company, as the only state-owned insurer, has 8,550 agents, of whom 1,187 hold two jobs.
Asia Insurance Company, with 2,636 agents, Pasargad Insurance, a subsidiary of Bank Pasargad, with 2,168 agents, Alborz Insurance, with 1,854 agents, Bank Parsian’s affiliate, Parsian Insurance, with 1,990 agents and Dana Insurance with 1,810 agents are the largest private players in the fast growing insurance industry.
