In the wake of allegations of insurance fraud against a Chunghwa Post Co (中華郵政) clerk, the Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) yesterday said it was mulling punitive measures against the firm.
An employee at a post office in New Taipei City’s Ruifang District (瑞芳) has for the past seven years allegedly been asking people to pay their entire life insurance premium in a lump sum by claiming that they were buying single-premium, whole-life insurance products.
However, Chunghwa Post does not sell single-premium, whole-life products.
The clerk then submitted payments toward life-insurance policies on behalf of the customers, Chunghwa Post said, but subsequent missed premium payments could have led to policies being canceled.
It said 800 policies held by more than 300 people were affected by the alleged fraud.
Chunghwa Post has yet to complete its internal investigation into the allegations, Insurance Bureau Deputy Director-General Thomas Chang (張玉煇) told a news conference in Taipei.
He said officials are seeking to track the misappropriated funds, determine if lax internal controls contributed to the alleged fraud, as well as to gauge losses customers might have suffered from policy terminations, Chang said.
He declined to provide estimates of potential losses to the company or the customers.
“The scale of misappropriation of premium payments is unprecedented,” Chang said, adding that the employee allegedly used forged receipts to convince people they were getting single-premium, whole-life products.
However, it would be difficult to penalize Chunghwa Post as it would a life insurance company because it is governed by the Regulations Governing Postal Simple Life Insurance Operations (郵政簡易人壽保險監督管理辦法), as it sells a limited range of products, while life insurers are governed by the Insurance Act (保險法), Chang said.
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