Florida Insurance Agent Arrested in Alleged $1 Million Life Insurance Fraud Scheme
December 16, 2014 by Thomas Harman, associate editor, BestWeek: Tom.Harman@ambest.com)
ORLANDO, Fla. – A Florida insurance agent has been arrested and charged with defrauding clients of his financial services firm more than $1 million in life insurance payments, according to Florida Chief Financial Officer Jeff Atwater.
Mario Ferreri, who worked for Financial Management Resources, was arrested following a five-year investigation between July 2009 and March 2014, Atwater’s office said in a statement. The probe by the Department of Financial Services’ Division of Insurance Fraud resulted in allegations that Ferreri stole more than $750,000 from one client’s life insurance payments and $427,000 from another client’s.
Ferreri is alleged to have convinced the clients to write insurance premium checks to Financial Management Resources instead of to their respective insurance companies. Ferreri claimed that by doing so, he could better manage their investments, the CFO office said.
But the CFO statement alleged Ferreri changed the mailing address linked to both clients’ policies to his own address, preventing the clients from receiving notification from carriers that their policies were not being paid. But the clients ultimately contacted the carriers concerning about the sudden lapse of their policies due to lack of payment.
The case is being prosecuted by the Orange County State Attorney’s Office. Ferreri’s bond was set at $1 million and he faces a maximum 60-year prison sentence if convicted. Ferreri’s insurance license has been revoked permanently by the DFS’s Division of Agent & Agency Services.
