Tampa Woman Posed as Insurance Agent, Used App to Take Payments, Indictment Says

A September trial for a Tampa woman charged with posing as an insurance agent and keeping thousands of dollars in auto insurance premiums has been postponed until December.

Katrenia Lynette Harris, 54, was indicted by a federal grand jury in June and a trial was set to begin Sept. 2 in federal court in Tampa. But that trial was postponed last week and a plea agreement may soon be negotiated, court documents suggest.

Harris reportedly lured multiple people into sending her money through Cash App, a digital wallet and transfer application, for auto policies with a major national insurance company. Prosecutors said she had approached the insurer, posing as the would-be policyholders in order to obtain policies for vehicles. But then she absconded with the premium payments, according to the federal indictment. The reported scam lasted from early 2017 through most of 2023.

The indictment indicated that at least four victim motorists were swindled, but Harris may have obtained as much as $49,700 in the alleged scheme. She will likely be required to forfeit those proceeds or other property, the court records indicate.

“It is further part of the scheme and artifice that Harris would and did fail to notify victim-customers of their policy cancellation due to the fraudulent nature of their policies and/or non-payment of premiums,” the indictment noted. “… As a result, victim-customers thereafter operated automobiles without required insurance under Florida law … resulting in additional financial loss and other legal consequences” for some of the victims.

Florida Department of Financial Services records show no license information for an insurance agent or broker named Katrenia Harris.

In the pantheon of insurance fraudsters, posing as an agent and using a phone-based cash transfer is not unheard of, particularly in auto insurance schemes. In 2022, two people in Georgia were charged with creating a fake insurance company and accepting premium payments through Cash App. Deamarkis Barber, 33, from Conyers, Georgia, was finally arrested in 2024, according to news reports.

Topics Agencies