The Financial Services Regulatory Authority of Ontario (FSRA) has refused to renew the life insurance agent licence issued to Sadrudin Khushal due to incompetence and untrustworthiness.
According to FSRA documents seen by Insurance Business, Khushal entered into a Minutes of Settlement and Undertaking (MOS) with the regulator in 2020, acknowledging that he had contravened the Insurance Act on multiple occasions over many years.
Under the MOS, Khushal agreed to surrender his licence and pay an administrative penalty while giving an undertaking not to apply for an insurance agent licence indefinitely. The terms of the MOS were repeatedly breached, with Khushal never surrendering his licence and instead filing for renewal on more than one occasion.
A defendant in several civil proceedings related to insurance policies he sold, Khushal also made material misstatements and omissions on his renewal applications.
Separately, in 2022, he entered a guilty plea to allegations of professional misconduct and had his Registered Insurance Brokers of Ontario (RIBO) membership suspended.
In its Notice of Proposal to Refuse to Renew, the FSRA noted: “The director is of the view that Khushal is not suitable to be licensed for the following reasons because he:
a) demonstrated incompetence and untrustworthiness to transact the insurance agency business for which the licence has previously been granted:
I) by failing to surrender the licence contrary to the MOS;
II) by applying on two occasions for renewal of the licence contrary to the MOS and the undertaking not to apply indefinitely for an insurance agent licence;
III) by engaging in conduct that contravened the Act that he admitted in the MOS and accepted disqualified him from licensing;
IV) by engaging in professional misconduct as an insurance agent for which he entered a guilty plea before the RIBO discipline committee and was penalized; and,
b) by repeatedly providing answers he knew were material misstatements or omissions to questions on applications to renew his licence for 2021 and 2023.”
Following hearings in January, the Financial Services Tribunal determined that the Notice of Proposal should be upheld without changes and that Khushal’s licence application should be refused.
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