http://newpaper.asia1.com.sg/news/story/0,4136,200454,00.html?
FOR 9 YEARS...
Her agent pockets $20,000 in payments
Insurance client, unaware that her agent was sacked, kept paying her premiums
By Amanda Yong
April 30, 2009
PHOTO ILLUSTRATION
INSURANCE agent Tan Hui Feng was sacked in 1997 but did not inform her client.
And for nearly a decade, Tan, 36, continued receiving annual payments from her client.
According to court papers, the client entrusted the money to Tan to pay the insurance premiums on her behalf.
But more than $20,000 went into Tan's pocket.
On 16 Apr , she was sentenced to eight months' jail for three charges of criminal breach of trust (CBT) . Six other charges were taken into consideration during sentencing.
According to court papers, she joined the American International Assurance (AIA) as a full-time insurance agent after graduating from the National University of Singapore with a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1996.
In the same year, a close friend of Tan's sister bought two insurance policies from her.
But when Tan lost her AIA job the following year, she did not inform her sister's friend. She continued to collect the yearly premiums for the policies.
It is not known why Tan was fired.
Felt ashamed
She used the money for her personal expenses and was able to keep up the charade for the next nine years.
But in 2007, the client realised Tan had not renewed her insurance policies between 1997 and 2006.
That was when Tan finally came clean.
In her written mitigation plea, she said she did not tell her client she was fired as she 'felt ashamed'.
She also did not want her sister and her family to know that she had lost her job.
She said her offences were 'not premeditated and were committed in a moment of folly'.
Her wrongdoing also affected her family, she said. Her husband, a manager in AIA, was forced to resign after she confessed.
The couple have a 4-year-old daughter.
Tan had also returned her client the money she took before she was sentenced.
In his written judgment, District Judge Eddy Tham said that while Tan could have been let off with a fine, he believed the case called for 'a substantial term of imprisonment'.
History of crime
It was not the first time Tan had broken the law. In 2001, she was convicted of similar charges of CBT and a forgery charge and was fined $8,000.
By breaking the law again, Tan had 'obviously not learnt her lesson and a further punishment of fine is clearly inappropriate', the judge said.
Second, the amount misappropriated by Tan was 'very substantial' and 'certainly not a paltry sum'.
Even if Tan had a clean record, a CBT offence for an amount of more than $20,000 would have merited a custodial sentence of at least six months' jail. CBT offenders can be fined and jailed for three years.
Third, Judge Tham did not believe Tan's explanation that she took the money as she was ashamed to admit she had lost her job.
'If that was the reason, then surely she would have kept aside the money instead of using it to spend on her personal expenses,' he noted.
In his sentencing, he took into account that Tan had voluntarily confessed to her crime, 'albeit many years later', returned the money and pleaded guilty to the offence.
But, the judge added: 'I could not ignore the fact that victims of such crime where insurance premiums had been misappropriated can be seriously prejudiced in that they would not have been insured in the event of any mishap during the relevant period.'
Tan is appealing against the sentence.
FOR 9 YEARS...
Her agent pockets $20,000 in payments
Insurance client, unaware that her agent was sacked, kept paying her premiums
By Amanda Yong
April 30, 2009
PHOTO ILLUSTRATION
INSURANCE agent Tan Hui Feng was sacked in 1997 but did not inform her client.
And for nearly a decade, Tan, 36, continued receiving annual payments from her client.
According to court papers, the client entrusted the money to Tan to pay the insurance premiums on her behalf.
But more than $20,000 went into Tan's pocket.
On 16 Apr , she was sentenced to eight months' jail for three charges of criminal breach of trust (CBT) . Six other charges were taken into consideration during sentencing.
According to court papers, she joined the American International Assurance (AIA) as a full-time insurance agent after graduating from the National University of Singapore with a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1996.
In the same year, a close friend of Tan's sister bought two insurance policies from her.
But when Tan lost her AIA job the following year, she did not inform her sister's friend. She continued to collect the yearly premiums for the policies.
It is not known why Tan was fired.
Felt ashamed
She used the money for her personal expenses and was able to keep up the charade for the next nine years.
But in 2007, the client realised Tan had not renewed her insurance policies between 1997 and 2006.
That was when Tan finally came clean.
In her written mitigation plea, she said she did not tell her client she was fired as she 'felt ashamed'.
She also did not want her sister and her family to know that she had lost her job.
She said her offences were 'not premeditated and were committed in a moment of folly'.
Her wrongdoing also affected her family, she said. Her husband, a manager in AIA, was forced to resign after she confessed.
The couple have a 4-year-old daughter.
Tan had also returned her client the money she took before she was sentenced.
In his written judgment, District Judge Eddy Tham said that while Tan could have been let off with a fine, he believed the case called for 'a substantial term of imprisonment'.
History of crime
It was not the first time Tan had broken the law. In 2001, she was convicted of similar charges of CBT and a forgery charge and was fined $8,000.
By breaking the law again, Tan had 'obviously not learnt her lesson and a further punishment of fine is clearly inappropriate', the judge said.
Second, the amount misappropriated by Tan was 'very substantial' and 'certainly not a paltry sum'.
Even if Tan had a clean record, a CBT offence for an amount of more than $20,000 would have merited a custodial sentence of at least six months' jail. CBT offenders can be fined and jailed for three years.
Third, Judge Tham did not believe Tan's explanation that she took the money as she was ashamed to admit she had lost her job.
'If that was the reason, then surely she would have kept aside the money instead of using it to spend on her personal expenses,' he noted.
In his sentencing, he took into account that Tan had voluntarily confessed to her crime, 'albeit many years later', returned the money and pleaded guilty to the offence.
But, the judge added: 'I could not ignore the fact that victims of such crime where insurance premiums had been misappropriated can be seriously prejudiced in that they would not have been insured in the event of any mishap during the relevant period.'
Tan is appealing against the sentence.
