Chinese online travel and hotel booker, Ctrip.com, has made a public announcement in which it apologizes to a consumer surnamed Liang for selling him fake insurance policies and agrees to pay him CNY4,000 in compensation.

In late 2008, Liang found that the two sets of CNY20 accident insurance he purchased from Ctrip.com for a flight scheduled to fly from Sanya to Kunming were invalid and he then claimed CNY800,000 in compensation from Ctrip.com.

It is understood that Ctrip.com received a confirmation on February 20 from Ping An Insurance Company — which was supposed to be the provider of the insurance policies — that the two sets of insurance were indeed counterfeit and the company says it found that it was an employee of Sanya Chenlong, a partner of Ctrip.com, who provided the counterfeit insurance to Liang. Ctrip.com says it has terminated its agreement with Sanya Chenlong.

Zhu Jianmin, a senior vice president of Ctrip.com, said that after the insurance incident, Ctrip.com had proactively launched an online accident insurance selling platform.