California 3 Hour Ethics Review

As part of your continuing education, individual states require producers to complete a certain number of hours in ethics training. This course will give you three hours of ethics training approved in your state towards completing the required education to renew your license.  

The course will take an in-depth look at a number of issues surrounding ethics and the producer, beginning with an examination of trust in the industry and whether clients actually trust insurance producers compared to other professions. It continues with a comparison of ethics versus morality. Corporate ethical behaviors are also scrutinized.  

Ethical concepts and terms will be explored, and the legal ramifications associated with poor ethical choices will be considered. As an important part of ethical compliance, we will also delve into unethical and unfair trade and claims practices, which have been heavily regulated by the state insurance divisions to protect clients and others.  

The course will concentrate on the producer’s ethical duties to the customer, the agency, and others in the business and provides plenty of examples to compare intelligent decision-making to decisions that are not that well thought out. We finish with the National Association of Insurance and Financial Advisors Code of Ethics, which gives an excellent ethical baseline from which to base ethical behavior, and the Code of Ethics that Chartered Property and Casualty Underwriters must adhere to. The lesson concludes with parameters for creating an in-house Code of Ethics for the agency or for a related type of insurance business and addresses the importance of doing so. 

Other topics included in this course are: 

• What ethics are and are not. 
• Accountability and related practices for the producer. 
• Legal concepts, including the basic concept of ethics legality, expectations of professionalism and expertise of the producer, illegal and unethical inducements, misrepresentations, and suitability of purchase. 
• Ethics for a successful business, with examples that illustrate sound ethical practices. 
• Contractual ethical duties compared to service-oriented duties to the client. 
• Fiduciary responsibilities and a discussion of whether a producer is a fiduciary. 
• Ethical duties to the customer that are owed by a producer to those that rely on others. 
• Accounting principles and the ethics of helping others, such as fellow employees. 
• Duties to the principal, including loyalty, accounting, obeying the principal’s lawful instructions (and if they are not lawful). 
• Advertising and sales presentation ethical challenges. 
• Laws that govern ethical conduct, including hearings processes, cease and desist orders, specific regulations, penalties relegated to unlawful acts, and other legal issues that affect producers. 
• The truth about ethics in the industry and the future of insurance. 

At the end of this course, there will be an examination that must be passed with a score of 70 percent or better. The exam may be taken as many times as needed to pass. 

CA Insurance Division Course ID: 386841