Fla. Insurance Agent Charged With Premium Theft Now in Prison, Has Paid Restitution

A high-profile southwest Florida insurance agent who pleaded “no contest” to absconding with thousands of dollars in premiums has been sentenced to just over a year in prison.

Reid J. McDaniel, 33, of North Fort Myers, was charged a year ago with embezzlement and theft of more than $22,900 in premiums paid by a local automotive shop. Last month, a Lee County Circuit Judge sentenced McDaniel to 15 months in prison, plus $660 in fines and full restitution to Wilson’s Automotive.

He’s already paid the restitution, said Paul Wilson, manager of the Cape Coral repair service.

“How he came up with the money to pay that, I don’t know,” Wilson said Monday.

McDaniel, who owned McDaniel Insurance Solutions on Hancock Bridge Parkway, had been declared indigent by a judge and was assigned a public defender early this year, court records show.

Wilson said the repair shop, with multiple locations, had paid the premiums to McDaniels in 2023, but then received a notice from the insurance carrier that the commercial liability and property insurance policies had been cancelled due to non-payment. The shop owners called McDaniel’s office and were told it was “a glitch” and coverage would be restored. It never was, Wilson explained.

“We took their word for it but we should have made sure with the insurance company,” Wilson said. “Thankfully, nothing happened to the shop during that time.”

Eventually, the truth emerged and the shop filed charges against the agent.

McDaniel entered the South Florida Reception Center in Doral on July 10, the Florida Department of Corrections indicated. He is set for release in September 2026.

He faced civil lawsuits for other issues in recent years, including one brought by an elderly policyholder won a $198,543 judgment against McDaniel in Lee County Circuit Court. The woman had filed suit after Hurricane Ian slammed the area in 2022. She said she had paid more than $2,200 in premiums for a mobile home policy with Lloyd’s of London, but McDaniel never secured the coverage.

When the home was decimated by the storm, the homeowner discovered she had no coverage.

Also in 2023, a sales agent hired at McDaniel’s agency in 2022 said in a lawsuit that he had repeatedly touched and groped her inappropriately, once after drinking “at least 4 whiskeys,” according to the lawsuit. That case was dismissed in November 2024.

The Florida Department of Financial Services indefinitely suspended McDaniel’s producer license in 2024, but the DFS agent verification site shows his general lines license was suspended in 2019. His appointments with multiple property insurers were issued in 2021 and most of those expired in 2024 and 2025.

“I don’t think he’ll have anything to do with insurance again,” Wilson said.

Topics Agencies Fraud