Ethics and Professional Conduct
Ethics in insurance rests on duties beyond compliance: fiduciary responsibility for funds and confidential information, fair dealing with policyholders, honest marketing, and prompt good-faith claims handling. Law sets a floor; ethical analysis asks whether a practice treats stakeholders fairly even when technically permitted.
Frameworks
Utilitarian (greatest net good), deontological/Kantian (duties and universal rules - would I accept this as general practice?), virtue (what would a person of integrity do?), and justice (fair distribution of burdens and benefits). A disciplined process: establish facts and stakeholders, name the ethical issue, list alternatives, evaluate against duties and consequences, decide, document, and test willingness to disclose.
Professional standards
Codes such as the CPCU Code of Professional Conduct address compliance with laws and regulations, fiduciary responsibilities, standards of conduct, professionalism, integrity, and proper use of the designation; they operate as a public commitment. Know the common unfair trade practices: misrepresentation, twisting (misrepresentation to induce replacement), rebating (illegal in most states), false advertising, unfair discrimination, boycott or coercion, and unfair claims settlement.
Traps
Equating legal with ethical; treating an undisclosed conflict of interest as acceptable (disclosure and recusal are the usual remedies); missing that a fiduciary duty can conflict with commission incentives; assuming confidentiality is absolute when legal or regulatory requirements, or a genuine duty to report wrongdoing, override it.
Rule of thumb
The disclosure test: if the client, the regulator, and your CEO all read your rationale in the file, would you still take the action? If not, do not take it.