Hong Kong’s Insurance Authority (IA) has begun a public consultation regarding ‘fit and proper’ criteria and continuing professional development (CPD) requirements for the market’s insurance intermediaries.

The consultation paper, which runs until November 30, discusses various standards to determine if a person is ‘fit and proper’ to be an insurance intermediary. These include professional qualifications and measures of honesty and integrity.

According to the IA, there is a “need to streamline, standardise, and update” its CPD regime. It noted that CPD requirements in other jurisdictions are much higher, such as the case of Singapore, where life insurance advisers must attend at least 30 hours of structured CPD training each year. For general insurance intermediaries in Singapore, they are required to attend 24 hours of CPD training annually for the first two years, followed by a minimum of 15 hours a year from the third year onwards.

As such, the IA proposed to increase the minimum requirement of CPD hours from 10 to 15 each year and introduce compulsory CPD activities of at least three hours of training related to a topic which falls under ‘ethics or regulations’.

The organisations currently in charge of regulating these areas are the Federation of Insurers, the Confederation of Insurance Brokers and the Professional Insurance Brokers Association. The IA is set to take over regulatory responsibilities by mid-2019.

As of June 30, 2018, there were 2,410 insurance agencies, 63,931 individual agents, 25,668 responsible officers/technical representatives of insurance agencies, 774 insurance brokers, and 8,964 chief executives/technical representatives of insurance brokers in Hong Kong. Along with 161 authorised insurers, this makes Hong Kong one of the largest insurance hubs in Asia and globally.