Former financial adviser, Susan Heathwood, has been sentenced to 19 and 22 months imprisonment, respectively, after pleading guilty to two charges.
Heathwood, of Randwick, New South Wales, was this week sentenced in the Downing Centre District Court after pleading guilty to two counts of dishonest conduct.
An investigation by the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) found that between August 2009 and May 2011, Heathwood falsified 65 insurance applications that led to her collecting over $380,000 in commissions.
At the time she was an authorised representative of GuardianFP and an employee of Jalee Consulting Group Pty Ltd, which is also an authorised representative of GuardianFP.
The periods of imprisonment were suspended with Heathwood entering into a two-year good behaviour bond in the amount of $1000.
Suspension for cooperation
In suspending the sentence the Court had regard to relevant mitigating factors, including Heathwood’s cooperation with ASIC investigators and her early guilty plea.
Earlier, the regulator found that Heathwood had collected commissions of $380,897.22 in respect of the policies generated from the false insurance applications. A total of $326,207.59 was retrieved by the insurance companies in the form of writebacks.
Heathwood made premium payments for a number of the policies that totalled $49,275.22 in an attempt to hide the conduct.
In February, ASIC permanently banned Heathwood from providing financial services.
As part of the scam, the names appearing in the false applications were mostly Heathwood’s current or former clients whose personal details were changed so they could not be identified.
The information that was falsified related to personal information about applicants who never asked for insurance to be arranged on their behalves.
The address of each applicant was Heathwood’s own post office box and any telephone number appearing in an application was her mobile number or the former mobile number of her son and her daughter.
The Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions prosecuted the matter.