Insurance Agent Guilty of Selling Phony Policies

Part of an insurance agent’s job is, of course, to sell insurance policies. A former Des Moines insurance agent wasn’t doing it correctly however, because the policies she was selling were fake.

According to seattlepi.com, on August 2nd, Brenda MacLaren-Beattie pled guilty to selling thousands of dollars worth of those fake policies to numerous customers in two separate states.

Last November, MacLaren-Beattie was charged in King County, where prosecutors alleged that she scammed customers out of more than $532,000. The scam, which went on for eight years –from October of 2001 to August of 2009, consisted of MacLaren-Beattie selling phony general-liability insurance policies to 41 customers, and then depositing the money straight into her own personal checking account. Twenty-five of those customers were in Washington, and sixteen in Oregon.

MacLaren-Beattie was charged her with 14 counts of first-degree theft back in November, of which she just pled guilty to eight.

“This is exactly why we have insurance laws: To make sure that people get the coverage they’re paying for,” Insurance Commissioner Mike Kreidler said in a statement.

“These customers were paying thousands of dollars for a worthless piece of paper.”

MacLaren-Beattie first got licensed to sell insurance in Washington back in 1977. Then in 2008 the state became informed of her scam, due to a client who became suspicious after a claim check came directly from MacLaren-Beattie and not an actual insurance company.  Perhaps she didn’t count on anyone filing a claim.

Investigators discovered that she was selling policies with no backing from insurers.

According to Seattle Weekly and Insurance Commissioner’s office spokeswoman Stephanie Marquis, this case is fairly run-of-the-mill, except for her paying out on two claims. One of those claims was for $800 on a broken camera, and the other for $7,000 worth of water damage. However, a second water-damage claim from the same customer for $10,000 was denied.

Her sentencing in King County Superior Court is expected to happen later this month.