An insurance adviser who impersonated a number of policy owners and a woman who has been jailed for theft have both been issued with a permanent ban from the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC).
Christopher Vassallo, from Essendon, Victoria, was working as an authorised representative of the Salisbury Group and was the sole director of Australian Life Insurance Services (ALIS) when his dishonest conduct is understood to have occurred.
ASIC’s investigation found that Mr Vassallo had impersonated a number of clients of the Australian Life Insurance Group (ALI Group), who had inadvertently contacted ALIS.
On 15 separate occasions, Mr Vassallo used these clients’ details to contact the ALI Group and obtain their policy information. Mr Vassallo then fabricated and submitted false documents to cancel the clients’ ALI Group policies, with the purpose of then signing them up to ALIS.
ASIC Deputy Chairman, Peter Kell, said: “Mr Vassallo’s conduct was a serious breach of trust that does not meet the standards of people operating financial services. ASIC believes it is appropriate that he be permanently removed from the industry.”
Under the terms of the ban, Mr Vassallo will no longer be able to provide financial services. He has applied to the Administrative Appeals Tribunal for a review of ASIC’s decision.
Meanwhile, ASIC has also announced it has issued a permanent ban to Tina McPhee, a South Australian adviser who was recently sentenced to a minimum of 10 years in jail (see: Ex-Adviser Jailed for 13 Years).
In November 2013, Ms McPhee pled guilty to 181 counts of theft, totalling more than $4million.
ASIC gave no explanation as to why the ban was issued so long after Ms McPhee admitted to the theft.
