Insurance boss flees with graft fortune

Grace Cao and Katheleen Wong

An executive of a Shanghai insurance broker has fled to Canada with 500 million yuan (HK$630 million), mainland portal Sina.com reported yesterday. Police have started investigating the case, its said.

The incident has sparked concerns over possible massive withdrawal of insurance policies if consumers' confidence plummets.

Chen Yi, general manager of Fan Xin Insurance Agent, allegedly fled abroad as the company met financial difficulty, the portal said.

Set up in 2007 in Shanghai, Fan Xin is an insurance products sales agent. The firm was also illegally selling wealth management products, the Shanghai Insurance Regulatory Commission said yesterday.

Instead of distributing insurers' products as it is supposed to do, the firm sold its own items.

To spur intermediaries to sell their products, insurers offer as much as 100-150 percent of the policy premium as commission. Fan Xin is alleged to have fabricated sales to deceive insurers for the past three years.

Sina quoted staff of Fan Xin saying Chen had left the country for some time with a large amount of money.

Source: The Standard