View this article online: https://www.insurancejournal.com/news/midwest/2020/11/30/592154.htm
A former Genesee County, Michigan, insurance agent has been sentenced to prison for embezzling more than $90,000 from her clients and providing them with phony home and automobile insurance certificates, according to the state insurance regulators.
The sentencing of Angella Kay Swain, 53, of Flint follows a plea deal she entered in July in which she pleaded no contest to one count of conducting a criminal enterprise, 11 counts of embezzlement by an agent between $1,000 and $20,000, and one count of using a computer to commit a crime.
Swain was sentenced to 20 months to 20 years’ imprisonment. She begins serving her sentence on Jan. 11, 2021. She is also responsible for paying restitution of about $90,223 to 34 victims, $12,000 of which she has paid.
Charges were filed in the case by the Attorney General’s office in October 2018 after it was referred to the office by the Michigan Department of Insurance and Financial Services (DIFS).
Between 2011 and 2016, Swain took insurance premiums from at least 34 of her clients and converted the money to her own use instead of remitting the premiums to the insurance companies. In many instances, Swain issued her clients false insurance certificates, leading her clients to believe they had homeowners or auto insurance coverage when they did not.
Swain was a licensed insurance producer and operated the Swain Agency from 2002 to 2013.
DIFS took enforcement actions against Swain in 2003, 2006 and 2009. In 2013, DIFS summarily suspended Swain’s insurance producer license and permanently revoked it in December 2014 for misappropriating clients’ premiums. In 2014, Swain continued to sell insurance without a license while working at her ex-husband’s insurance agency, Select Insurance Agency.
Source: Michigan DIFS
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