South Florida homeowners under arrest
A Florida insurance agent is sentenced to 14 years in prison for diverting premiums for his personal use, a Miami homeowner gets caught for allegedly claiming old damage on an insurance claim, and why a $15,000 monthly rental for temporary housing caught the eye of one insurance company’s claims department. It’s all in this week’s Fraud News.
Insurance Agent Fraud: Pensacola insurance agent John Michael Thomas was recently sentenced to 14 years in federal prison after pleading guilty to making off with nearly $5 million in insurance premiums from his clients. Thomas, who owned the Thomas Insurance Agency also has to pay $8 million in restitution for his “premium diversion” insurance fraud. Over a seven year period, Thomas collected insurance premiums from at least 67 customers and kept the funds for personal use instead of producing insurance policies, according to the charges. In return, he gave the customers fraudulent documents referencing insurance policies that simply did not exist. Federal prosecutors say some clients lost more than $2 million in unpaid hurricane, fire and liability claims as a result.
Old Damage: It took a couple of years but Miami Gardens homeowner Damacio Green has been arrested and charged with filing a false and fraudulent claim of more than $300,000 with Citizens Property Insurance. In March 2021, Green filed a homeowner property insurance claim with Citizens alleging damage from the month before from a back-up and overflow in the kitchen and bathrooms which was said to have resulted in cracked tiles and a bad smell. Green provided a sworn proof of loss in the amount of $79,978.59 in property damage. But an inspection revealed that preexisting damages occurred prior to the policy inception of July 2020 and that Green failed to disclose it at policy inception. The investigation revealed that since 2007, Green has collected more than $302,000 in combined property insurance payments, with $196,400 in claims payments since 2015 – all things he allegedly knew and omitted when applying for homeowners insurance, according to a release by the Florida Department of Financial Services (DFS).
Expensive Temporary Housing: One county north in Broward County and acting on information from Edison Insurance Company, DFS arrested a couple last week for a scheme to defraud and for filing a false or fraudulent claim. Leduc Obas and Rachelle Remy submitted a signed lease agreement for an additional living expense claim while their home was undergoing repairs for water damage. The alleged rental property term was from July 1, 2022, to November 31, 2022, costing approximately $15,000 per month. Edison Insurance paid Obas and Remy $60,222 based on the lease agreement submitted in support of the claim. The investigation further revealed that the rental property was occupied by someone else during the dates on the submitted lease agreement and that Obas and Remy never lived at the rental property. Instead, they pocketed the $60,222 in fraudulent additional living expense payments for their own personal use.
Have a great week and call or email us if we can help you navigate Bill Watch or you have other questions. Of course, you are always welcome to stay with us in our home and walk the halls of the Florida Capitol with us!
See you on the trail,
Lisa
LMA Newsletter of 4-24-23
