B.C.'s licensing body for insurance agents suspects 21 Surrey life insurance agents colluded to cheat on their licensing exams.

"It's unusual. Period," said Insurance Council of British Columbia executive director Gerald Matier, who added the findings are so alarming, the council is in the process of suspending all 21 agents pending further hearings.

Matier said an audit of exams written within the last year or so found an "odd" distribution of multiple-choice exams with near-identical right and wrong answers written between October 2016 and June 2017.

Then, it came to light those exams were all written by agents affiliated with one Surrey branch of World Financial Group, according to the council. Matier declined to say which branch.

"So many people coming from the same location having pretty well the exact same answers — particularly on the ones that were wrong — that's what kind of makes it look very unusual," Matier said.

"We've never encountered it before.... We've caught the odd person cheating, but we've never found it at this level where there appears to be collusion involving more than one person."

Not foolproof

Matier believes the cheating was a coordinated but low-tech effort.

The council suspects one person took the exam first, committed the answers to memory and then gave the sequence to the other alleged cheaters, who copied them directly.

That, he says, explains why the same right and wrong answers kept coming up.

There are four versions of the licensing exams, Matier said, which means one or more people must have memorized all four answer sequences and passed them on.

He says a test-taker could deduce which version they had by the first question on an exam, or, more simply, by the fact that the version is actually noted on the exam package.

The cheating was not foolproof, however.

In a few cases, Matier said test-takers used the wrong answer sequences on some sections of their exams and then failed those sections.

'Brings into question their competency'

The allegations of cheating leave Matier with a question: Why put so much effort into cheating when you can just study?

"We don't think the exam is too onerous," he said. "We're comfortable in believing that if you put in four weeks of studying in the courses that are available online ... you should be in a good position to write our exams.

"I think anyone who's cheated obviously brings into question their competency — certainly brings into question their trustworthiness and their ability to act in good faith."

The accused agents are entitled to hearings to prove they did not cheat. If they can't, they will lose their licences.

Matier said the council will decide if each individual agent will get an opportunity to rewrite the exams or instead be permanently banned from selling insurance.

In the meantime, Matier said insurance licensing bodies from across Canada will be meeting in coming weeks, and improving exam security will be a top agenda item.

In response to the suspensions, World Financial Group president Rick Williams said his company would investigate the matter and work with the insurance council.

"Our organization does not tolerate cheating and is taking all necessary steps regarding this matter," he said in a statement. "We are committed to integrity and doing the right thing for our customers who rely on our products and services to build financial security for their families."