AML and Sanctions Challenges Affecting the Insurance Industry

The ACAMS Connecticut Chapter held an event on Thursday, June 18, 2015, which covered anti-money laundering (AML) and sanctions challenges affecting the insurance industry. The event was held at the Hilton Garden Inn in Windsor, Connecticut, and 32 AML professionals from several different financial firms, insurance offices and consulting agencies attended. The event also included a one-hour networking session, in which attendees could learn more about each other through a fun-filled “characteristic bingo game.”

Speakers at the event were Robert Wilhelm, who is the development director for compliance/ADS at LIMRA in Windsor, Connecticut; Laura Perlotto, who is the AML officer in corporate compliance at Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Company and Richard Elomaa, the director of operational compliance at the Knights of Columbus. Wilhelm discussed how to train individuals about AML within the insurance industry. Perlotto and Elomaa discussed how the insurance industry is impacted with a variety of challenges, which include knowing their customer, how clients can misuse their policies or take advantage of laundering money through the use of wires, travelers cheques, or money orders in order to pay for their policies and then in turn cancelling their policies within the cooling-off period and receiving “clean funds” through a check issued to them from an insurance company. Elomaa also discussed how the infamous “Operation Capstone” impacted the insurance industry.

The chapter also provided attendees with information about the Polaris Project, which is one of the leading anti-trafficking organizations in the U.S., and its efforts to end human trafficking. This year, the chapter is holding a fundraiser for Polaris Project. To learn more about Polaris Project and/or to make a donation, click here.

Leave a Reply