David McGuffie was this month cleared of four charges of dishonestly filing claims with Pinnacle Life, Asteron, Tower and AIA.

He owned Advanced Insurance in Napier, which was put into liquidation early 2014. McGuffie went bankrupt.

McGuffie said his trouble started in 2009 when he had his agency agreement terminated by Fidelity Life after he moved a number of clients to another insurer.

Of an initial $850,000 of annual premium he had placed with Fidelity, McGuffie estimated he moved about $600,000 over a two-and-a-half year period, primarily because clients could get a better deal elsewhere.

He then struck trouble with AIA when it brought out a series of better contract terms for clients. McGuffie said he was told that he needed to rewrite each client’s business to take advantage of lower premiums, even though that meant he would be paid upfront commission again each time. “They were effectively paying me twice.

“Every year it kept cropping up as renewals came up because people could save $200 or $300 a month, I couldn’t not do it.”

Although McGuffie said he was told that was the right thing to do, eventually AIA informed him they were considering cancelling the agency.

He then signed an agency with Tower, which was then bought by Fidelity Life. McGuffie said at this point a former staff member starting photocopying files, trying to get an investigation into his behaviour.

That sparked a three-year process which culminated in an FMA expert brought in to provide evidence saying it was not clear from McGuffie’s files that there had been any wrongdoing.

“There was never anything wrong with the files - there was never anything wrong with what I did or how I did business's - as these charges were brought against me be our [former staff member]. She had photocopied sections of the files to make it look like I had done wrong - she had been in contact with the FMA while she was still working for us. The insurance companies had done their investigations and found nothing wrong.

“The interesting thing was - the police never came to me requesting the complete files of any of the client's they interviewed - had they done this I would never had gone to court and would still be in business.”

McGuffie said a lot of damage had been done to him personally. His contacts within Hawkes Bay thought he had stolen money from insurance companies and others had distanced themselves from him.

Since 2014, he has worked for Brokermatch, a service that introduces potential clients to brokers.

“I was producing $650,000 of income, now I’m earning $50,000 a year.”

McGuffie said he would like to be a broker again but he would need to come out of bankruptcy first, which will not happen until next year.

“[It’s also a matter of whether] any of the insurers would ever give me an agency - for example a good friend of my tried to get me an agency through Sovereign before our company went into liquidation and they turned me down due to being told by another insurer that I was under investigation by the police for tombstoning. This  happened before I even know the police were involved.  I would like to be a broker again - as I believe the concept of insurance is amazing and I have seen it save people's live financially firsthand.”

McGuffie said his books of business were given to other brokers.