White Mountains Subsidiary Wobi in Hot Water

Meet Wobi:

Think: the only price comparison-slash-insurance aggregator in Israel, with an insurance carrier panel that represents 85% of the premiums written in the Israeli insurance market. The company, established in 2009, primarily offers personal lines insurance including personal auto, home, travel, and health insurance products. As of December 31, 2015, White Mountains’ ownership share of Wobi was 96.1% and 63.3% on a fully converted basis.

Now the White Mountains subsidiary is in hot water . According to Israeli news source TheMarker, Clal Insurance filed a complaint on Monday accusing founder and ex-CEO Sharon Giler of allegedly forging documents concerning the payments that Clal transferred to Wobi, and presenting the company’s shareholders with inflated data. Also, the insurer claimed this was done to allow Giler to take home a bigger paycheck.

White Mountains has since dismissed Giler from his CEO post and announced Eran Oren as the new CEO, without commenting on the reason behind the abrupt change.

Oren joined Wobi in May to support the company’s expansion into pensions and investments as the company is expected to develop a digital platform for securities trading on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange to allow investors to buy and sell securities through their smartphones at low-cost commissions.