Click to play videoMumbai: Selling insurance requires expertise but people unqualified for the job may be working as agents because of fraud in training and exams, a CNN-IBN investigation has found.
The first clue in the investigation was an advertisement the unit manager of a leading private insurance company had placed in a newspaper inviting candidates to apply for a job of an insurance advisor. A CNN-IBN reporter posed as Anita Bhatia, a housewife with a Class XII certificate, and went to one of the company's branches.
A company executive told the reporter she could become an insurance agent without taking training. “We take Rs 1,000 as exam fee. There is a compulsory online training of 100 hrs by IRDA (Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority) that you have to complete before you take the exam,” he said.
“Now what we do is, we make an ID and keep the Internet open for 100 hrs. The cost of doing this comes to Rs 4,000. We show them that the candidate has completed the training but actually it is not so.”
“Don’t worry about the exam—the question paper is out. Big companies like ours buy these question papers for Rs 3 lakh to Rs 5 lakh.”
When the reporter said she feared she wouldn’t be able to clear the exam and wanted her sister (another CNN-IBN correspondent) to write the test, the company executive agreed. “She looks very similar to you and has the same hairstyle. I don’t think anyone will identify her but the main thing is that she has to clear the exam,” he said.
The sister sat for the exam on behalf of the undercover reporter and cleared it. Two weeks later, we had in our hands the license that allows us to sell insurance to any consumer in this country.
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