If this is your point, sorry but your argument doesn't follow. There's nothing against the certification authority requiring 52 hours of training. And there's nothing against Zenefits cheating if they believe a certified expert is better than an uncertified one (and this is the argument underlying Mr. Friedman discussion).
Certification vs. Licensing is a complex discussion topic, I tend to prefer certifications over licensing, but this is definitively not the point with Zenefits.
On the other hand, Zenefits might not have bothered with certification since it wouldn't have been legally required, or the requirements might have been less silly if certified professionals had to compete with non-certified.
You have to prove this. Also, you have to consider a problem in the way the market works. Insurance brokers are paid by insurance companies through referral fees, not by the final user. If you know something about economy, this should ring a bell: "moral hazard." Or we change the way the market works, but there could be unintended consequences or external regulation is required to ensure the market is fair.
You can outlaw certifications over a year old, but you cannot take the earned certification away. Besides, you cannot take them away mid-year for malpractice. Once you're certified to pass something, you have passed it. You can't go back in time and unpass it.
The main reason I oppose licensure is that producer groups (e.g. insurance brokers) will exert political pressure to add more and more irrelevant requirements in order to obtain a license. Take barbering for example: in many states in order to become a barber, you need to complete hundreds of hours of theoretical instruction in the anatomy of the face and head, the elementary chemistry of sterilization, the histology of hair, etc. Just to cut hair!
In addition, the professional activities that require a license tend to gradually expand due to political pressure. Doctors spend a lot of time doing things that could be performed by a skilled technician, and the result is unnecessarily expensive medical care, and some people not having access to care at all.