Interesting notion…how diplomatic you are, Heather!
Buying scholarly papers and passing them off as your own work is academic misconduct in the purest sense and I am sure that neither you or your company would condone such a practice.
I must say, though that it is a bit of a shame that our insurance exams and courses for CAIB, CIP and licensing are such dry multiple-choice type things. I think it might be both challenging and fun to be asked to produce an academic-style paper along with all that memorization of facts.
As a CIP/AIIC designated since 1995, I did it the "dry" way, but I've often wondered how we might make what we study just a bit more interesting.