Friday, November 09, 2012

Fraudulent Agent Tricks

While most insurance professionals are just that, it's not always the case. As we saw not long ago, there are unethical agents out there, and sometimes they make the news.

Of course, it takes a special kind of stupid to defraud one of the best-known names in American culture, but that apparently didn't stop California insurance agent Jerry Goldman from trying:

"A Southern California insurance broker was arrested Wednesday on allegations he overcharged Tom Hanks, musician Andy Summers and others hundreds of thousands of dollars for insurance premiums."

Generally speaking, only the US Government is allowed to overcharge folks for insurance premiums.

According to the story at the link, this little game has been going on for over 13 years. It appears that he overcharged his clients, remitting the actual premium due to the carrier(s) while keeping the difference for himself.

One rarely (if ever) sees this on the life and health side, since the premiums for these types of plans are almost always submitted directly to the carrier, or at least with checks made payable to them. On the P&C side, though, this isn't always the case, which is why this kind of mischief can occur.

Credit where it's due, however: at least the agent submitted the proper premiums, so that the coverage was (presumably) in force had a claim occurred. The coverages ran the gamut from cars and property to worker's comp and fine art.
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