Insurance agent buys policies to win performance bonuses
Nancy Paquette, an insurance agent with American Family Insurance, committed fraud in order to become one of the company’s top agents. She opened policies without the consent of people to boost her sales figures.
A coworker suspected something was wrong because Paquette would have many last-minute policies written during sales campaigns. She would insist that she handle all paperwork for these last-minute sales, and the supposed customers would never contact the agent’s office about their policies.
An internal investigation by American Family uncovered the insurance fraud, and Paquette was fired in 2004. She has now been charged with two counts of misappropriation of personally identifying information.
In total, there were 291 secret life insurance policies and 61 secret health insurance policies. The premiums on these fraudulent policies totaled at least $200,000, but the bonuses she received exceeded this amount. In addition, Paquette was charged with two counts of theft for stealing $54,000 in premium payments from a commercial customer.
Tags: insurance agent, fraud, insurance fraud, misappropriation of personally identifying information, life insurance, health insurance
