Question

Difficulty: MediumUnfair Trade Practices

During an annual policy review, a licensed agent discovers that a client holds a permanent life insurance policy with another carrier. The agent persuades the client to surrender this existing policy and purchase a new one by deliberately misrepresenting the new policy's benefits and hiding the fact that a new contestability period will apply. Under state insurance regulations, which illegal trade practice has the agent committed?

  1. TwistingAnswer
  2. B
    Rebating
  3. C
    Coercion
  4. D
    Defamation

Answer

Twisting
The correct answer is twisting because it specifically refers to the unethical and illegal practice of making false, misleading, or incomplete statements to induce a policyholder to lapse, forfeit, surrender, or replace an existing insurance policy. By deliberately misrepresenting benefits and hiding the new contestability period to force a replacement, the agent engaged in this exact violation.

Step-by-Step Solution

1
Analyze the agent's actions in the given scenario.
The agent persuaded a client to surrender an existing policy for a new one by using deliberate misrepresentations and omitting crucial facts.
Identifying the specific behavior is required to accurately classify the regulatory violation.
2
Evaluate the behavior against the legal definitions of Unfair Trade Practices.
The act of making misleading comparisons or false statements specifically to induce a policy replacement matches the statutory definition of twisting.
State regulations distinctly categorize different prohibited sales tactics to apply the correct disciplinary actions.

Key Concept

Unfair Trade Practices: Twisting
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