Auto Glass Fraudster Ordered to Pay over $1.6 Million

Did you get a new windshield  from Premier Auto Glass, LLC or Autoglass Express Inc? We sure hope not.

According to the Insurance Journal, Michael Alan Perkins, who owns and runs both auto glass companies out of his home, was sentenced last week for insurance fraud. He has now also been ordered to pay more than $1.6 million in restitution to several insurance companies because of his overbilling scam.  Apparently his company had been using salvaged glass in auto repairs, but billing the insurers the full price for new glass.

On August 19^th, Perkins was ordered by the King County Superior Court to pay State Farm Insurance a total of $864,640, Allstate Insurance Co a total of $726,700, and Metropolitan Property & Casualty Insurance Co a total of $24,888.

Perkins pled guilty on July 1^st to three counts of first-degree theft, for which he was sentenced to 9 months in jail, with 30 days of that being converted into 240 hours of community service.

Washington Insurance Commissioner Mike Kreidler’s anti-fraud Special Investigations Unit conducted the investigation into Perkins. Months were spent examining more than 10,000 records, where they found over $1.5 million in deceptive billing between September of 2005 and December of 2009.

In some cases, the insurers paid full price for car windows that Perkins had gotten from auto wrecking yards. One Toyota windshield billed at more than $1,000 actually cost $92. A Lexus windshield that cost $145 was billed at $1,082.

State Farm was told about the scheme by Lynx Services, which is a third-party administrator that handles glass claims. They became suspicious after a random search of their database showed an unusually high percentage of original equipment manufacturer (OEM) glass being installed in cars that were being worked on by Autoglass Express.

Investigators with State Farm soon began contacting policyholders and comparing the installed glass to the customers’ bills. They then turned the case over to the Insurance Commissioner’s Special Investigations Unit, which obtained search warrants and seized more than 50 boxes of invoices and hard drives that belonged to Perkins’ companies.