8 months’ jail for financial adviser who forged insurance policy registrations

SINGAPORE – To hit her team’s sales targets, a financial adviser forged multiple signatures in registering insurance policies for multiple victims.

Lai Mei Lin, 32, was sentenced to eight months’ jail on Aug 6 after she pleaded guilty to a total of five charges – two charges of unauthorised access to computer material and three relating to forgery.

Four other charges over similar offences were taken into consideration during her sentencing.

Lai’s lawyer, Mr S.S. Dhillon, said his client was now a financial adviser with Prudential but had submitted her resignation.

He told the court that Lai is serving a one-month notice period and asked for a deferment of her sentence. Lai was granted the deferment by the court and will have to surrender on Sept 6.

Deputy Public Prosecutor Cheronne Lim said that at the time of the offences, Lai had held the position of assistant vice-president and was working as a unit manager with Manulife Financial Advisers.

In December 2019, Lai met a former colleague and proposed using his personal details to register for an insurance policy.

Lai told him that he would not have to pay for the policy as she would do so.

Initially reluctant, the former colleague agreed as Lai told him that she wanted to hit her sales target and was willing to spend money to complete policies. He gave her his personal details, including a copy of his NRIC.

On Dec 20, 2019, Lai registered an insurance policy with her former colleague’s particulars using a company account belonging to a financial representative she was supervising – Joel Tan Per Yuan, 27.

Tan, who had joined Manulife Financial Advisers a month earlier, had grown to trust Lai during his training period, and had given her the username and password to his company account.

When Lai logged in to his account to register the insurance policy for her former colleague, she contacted him for a one-time password sent to his phone.

With neither Lai’s former colleague nor Tan physically present, Lai then dishonestly affixed eight false signatures to various documents before submitting them to herself for approval.

DPP Lim said Lai intentionally deceived Manulife Financial Advisers into believing that Tan was the financial representative who sold the policy as both she and Tan would receive more payments than if Lai had registered the policy alone.

“The sale would also contribute to Lai’s team’s sales target, in respect of which Lai stood to receive further bonus payments,” the DPP added.

After Lai arranged for payment of the policy premium of $7,031.20 on behalf of her former colleague, Manulife Financial Advisers paid Lai, Tan and Lai’s branch manager a total of $8,354.30 in commission, overriding fee and bonus payments.

On Dec 20, 2020, Lai filled in a surrender form with her former colleague’s details and a fake signature purportedly signed by him without his knowledge, and submitted it to her company.

In a similar manner, Lai caused three other policies to be registered under three different people’s names. One of them involved another financial representative she was supervising, Samuel Ang Wee Teck, 26.

The cases against Ang and Tan are ongoing.

On April 29, 2022, Tan made a complaint to Manulife Financial Advisers regarding Lai and the company conducted an investigation, only to find it inconclusive then due to Lai’s lack of cooperation.

Lai had made false claims including that she does not conduct any sales to clients who are not her family members.

In sentencing Lai, District Judge Chay Yuen Fatt said her level of dishonesty and culpability was high as she had forged multiple false signatures each time.