Broker fined after tech startup advertises insurance before it was licensed to sell it

Car insurance policy form on laptop screen. Insurance agent or salesman providing security document. People buying auto, leasing. Protection, warranty of vehicle from accident, damage or collision — iStock.com/Nadezhda Buravleva

A B.C. broker who worked with a tech startup company as a side gig has been fined $2,000 after his start-up tech company went public with a website that advertised insurance services about a year before the company was licensed to sell insurance.

Complicating matters for Barzin Assadi, the Insurance Council of B.C. found that he breached rules around a client’s privacy of personal information by emailing it to himself from the brokerage to his personal Gmail account.

B.C.’s broker regulator noted Assadi had been disciplined for a privacy complaint in the past in B.C., which he did not disclose to the Manitoba regulator. When the Manitoba broker regulator disciplined him for not disclosing his disciplinary history in B.C., he did not subsequently tell the B.C. regulator about the Manitoba regulator’s decision.

“Council considered mitigating and aggravating factors,” the Insurance Council of B.C. wrote in a decision released in October 2025. “Mitigating factors included that the [broker] had co-operated with council’s investigation, that clients were not harmed by [making the website public prematurely], and – most significantly – that the [start-up’s] website had been shut down very quickly when the [broker] had been made aware that it was publicly accessible.”

However, council was concerned about the broker’s handling clients’ personal information in the past and not disclosing his disciplinary history to other provincial regulators.

“[T]here is, in council’s opinion, some likelihood that the [broker] may repeat the misconduct relating to client confidentiality and notification of regulators if disciplinary action is not taken,” the ruling states.

Premature website

Council found Assadi, while still working for his former brokerage, became involved with a startup technology company that was incorporated in 2020. At that time, Assadi told council, it was never intended the technology company would sell insurance or other products.

But when Assadi and his colleagues at the tech start-up eventually decided to sell insurance, they created a brokerage, which would become licensed to sell insurance in April 2023.

Before then, in June 2022, and again in November 2022, council noted the website was accessible by the public. In June 2022, council reviewed the brokerage’s website, making the following observations, as cited in the regulator’s decision:

The website contained statements such as, “Finally, a fast and easy way to get the best home insurance coverage in BC. 90 seconds is all it takes.”
The website described how AI could help provide simple and affordable home insurance coverage, and that “Kylie,” an AI agent, could show clients the best insurance rate options.
The website described the agency as an “online insurance brokerage” and noted that its AI could provide quotes, customize policies, and activate coverage.
The website stated: “Using powerful Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology, [the Agency] revolutionizes the home insurance buying process.”
The website contained a testimonial from a purported customer that stated: “Wow, someone finally figured out how to make this process not suck.”
The website allowed for completion of an application, up until the point of being asked to provide payment details.
The website featured headshots and names of the agency’s leadership, including Assadi as the president.
The “Terms and Conditions” portion of the website appeared to have been copied and pasted from the website of an unrelated insurance agency.

Assadi told council the website had not been “operational” during the time it was made public before the brokerage was licensed to sell insurance.

“’Not operational,’ in the sense intended by [Assadi], meant that the website was under construction and that [insurance] applications could not be completed or finalized,” as the council decision reads, adding the broker wasn’t denying it had been made public.

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“It was submitted that there was no payment vendor set up for the agency website at that point, and that it would have been impossible for an application to be completed and paid for. The first full transaction completed on the website occurred in November 2023, after the agency had become licensed with council.”

Council’s investigation corroborated the story, finding the website traffic was low during the times it was public. Plus, the geographic locations of the website hits corresponded to those of the staff members designing the site.

As for the testimonials and terms and conditions, those were mere “placeholders” until the time the website was ready to be released.

Council granted members of the public were not harmed by the premature public presentation of the website, but it nevertheless held the public release of the website did breach the rules.

“Although it was in error that the agency website was made accessible to the public, council’s opinion is that [Assadi] should have taken greater care to ensure that the unlicensed company he had a prominent leadership role in was not improperly advertising itself as a provider of insurance services, or otherwise publishing misleading marketing information,” council ruled.

Client confidentiality

One aggravating factor in its sentencing, council said, is that Assadi had emailed client information to himself at his own personal Gmail account.

Assadi argued the information wasn’t particularly sensitive. He acknowledged two incidents in which he sent client information from his former brokerage to himself.

“When asked by the committee as to how he had inadvertently sent the same client’s information to his Gmail account on two separate occasions, [Assadi] stated that he may have been attempting to send them to another representative of the former employer but that the auto-populate feature may have entered his own Gmail address rather than the intended address,” council’s decision states.

B.C.’s council had investigated Assadi previously for how he handled client information. It issued a disciplinary order in September 2021 “for client confidentiality issues similar to those investigated in the present case,” B.C. council noted.

Assadi was subsequently disciplined in June 2023 by Manitoba’s broker regulator for failing to disclose the B.C. investigation.

B.C.’s council subsequently found he did not disclose Manitoba’s ruling to them.

Assadi’s lawyer said his client had intended to provide the B.C. council with notice of his Manitoban discipline “after receiving a payment acknowledgment letter from the [Manitoba broker regulator],”

But B.C.’s council found the five-day rule for notification had clearly been breached.