Latest Fraud Headlines
All the headlines from our Fraud Topic Page, ordered by recency.
Calif. Broker Pleads No Contest to Premium Theft
May 14 2006 // California Insurance Commissioner John Garamendi announced the no contest plea for insurance broker Alicia Lavendier, 44, for one count of grand theft and one count of insurance premium theft. Lavendier pled no contest on...
Metro N.Y. Auto Claims Costlier Than Upstate, Industry Study Says
May 12 2006 // A recent Insurance Research Council (IRC) study of auto injury insurance claims in the state of New York finds that claimants from the New York City metropolitan area exhibit very different claiming behaviors than...
Five Calif. Residents Arrested for Suspected Auto Insurance Fraud
May 12 2006 // California Insurance Commissioner John Garamendi announced the arrests of three suspects who were allegedly said to have participated in the staging of auto collisions on the 605 Freeway. Three of the suspects —...
South Carolina Car Theft Rate Continues to Rise
May 12 2006 // The number of vehicles stolen in South Carolina has risen for the seventh year in a row. According to the National Insurance Crime Bureau’s (NICB) annual report on auto theft rates, Hot Spots, there were nearly...
Vermont Joins States Making Insurance Fraud a Specific Crime
May 11 2006 // In what supporters hope amounts to a preemptive strike on insurance schemes, Vermont’s legislature on its last day of the 2006 legislative session passed a bill making insurance fraud a specific crime. Gov. Jim...
Auto Theft Declines for Second Straight Year; West Leads Nation in Car Theft
May 9 2006 // Des Plaines, Ill.-based National Insurance Crime Bureau (NICB) reported that for calendar year 2005, the West, and particularly California, leads the nation in auto theft. All of the nation’s top ten areas with the...
Fla. Passed More Staged Accident Reforms This Year Than Any State
May 9 2006 // Florida’s Legislature responded to a pandemic of staged accidents by passing the most-sweeping fraud reforms of any state this year, according to the Coalition Against Insurance Fraud. “The legislature realizes...
Consumers, many departments required to fight identity theft
May 8 2006 // Editor’s Note: This is the second installment of a two-part roundtable discussion on identity theft. Part 1 examined the scope and source of identity theft, and can be found on page 100 of Insurance Journal’s...
Former Enron executive admits guilt, says complacency equally bad as committing fraud
May 8 2006 // The same week Enron Corp. founder Kenneth Lay told jurors that he did not intentionally deceive investors and analysts, another former Enron executive told the insurance and risk management community that Enron suffered...
Consumers, many departments required to fight identity theft
May 8 2006 // Editor’s Note: This is the second installment of a two-part roundtable discussion on identity theft. Part 1 examined the scope and source of identity theft and can be found on page 100 of Insurance Journal’s...
Fla. SB 1596, HB 561 Tighten Grip on Insurance Fraud
May 5 2006 // Passage by Florida’s Legislature of Senate Bill 1596 and House Bill 561, sponsored by Sen J.D. Alexander and Rep. David Rivera, Florida’s Legislature has tightened the grip on insurance fraud artists who steal...
Former California Agent Charged with Fraud, Grand Theft
May 5 2006 // Donald Paul Hardwick, 43, of Fresno, Calif., has been charged with three felony counts of insurance fraud, theft of insurance funds and grand theft by embezzlement, stemming from investigations conducted by the California...
California Chiropractor and Legal Assistant Plead No Contest to Fraud
May 4 2006 // An Encino, Calif., chiropractor Nasrin “Nancy” Hadizadeh Fathi, 43, and legal assistant Behrouz Beck Saffary, 51, have pled no contest and were found guilty of one count each of insurance fraud, the California...
Auto Insurance Costs Holding Steady; Average Nationwide Premium at $867
May 3 2006 // The cost of auto insurance is expected to rise by just 0.5 percent in 2006, the smallest increase in six years, reports the Insurance Information Institute. A declining number of auto accidents, safer cars and...
Unlicensed Los Angeles Man Sentenced for Theft of Premiums
May 2 2006 // An unlicensed Los Angeles insurance agent, Jose Miguel Marquez, 23, has been sentenced to one year of summary probation and ordered to reimburse the California Department of Insurance (CDI) $10,000 for investigative costs...
Texas DOI Lists March Enforcement Actions
May 1 2006 // The Texas Department of Insurance announced enforcement actions taken by Commissioner Mike Geeslin that became final during March. The actions include five license revocations, three license denials and fines and...
ChoicePoint Comments on FEMA Investigation
May 1 2006 // The Associated Press filed a story Wednesday, April 26, about a federal General Accounting Office (GAO) investigation of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and fraud associated with its post-Katrina financial...
Insurance Scam Plotted by Mich. Prison Inmates Takes Fatal Twist
Apr 28 2006 // According to the Coalition Against Insurance Fraud, what started as a life-insurance fraud scheme ended up as an execution. Michigan inmates Cameron Wade Sanders and Kevin Mykolaitis hatched a con while in prison to create...
Bay Area Chiropractor Arrested for Alleged Insurance Fraud
Apr 27 2006 // A California Bay Area chiropractor, Dr. Linda Fang, has been arrested for insurance fraud. Fang was charged with eight counts of presenting fraudulent claims; eight counts of false statements in support of insurance...
Texas Fraud Committee Warns of Accident ‘Runners’
Apr 27 2006 // You’re involved in a minor traffic accident where there was little damage to either vehicle, no one was hurt, but police were called and a traffic accident report was filled out. Much to your surprise, someone...
