Insurance coverage agent arraigned after allegedly stealing from small enterprise homeowners

A Laguna Seashore insurance coverage agent has been arraigned following allegations of stealing from small enterprise homeowners.

Erin Lee McCarroll, 49, has been arraigned on 27 felony counts, together with grand theft and forgery, following an investigation by the California Division of Insurance coverage. The investigation revealed that McCarroll allegedly misappropriated over $62,000 in insurance coverage premiums from a minimal of 10 California enterprise homeowners.

The division initiated the investigation after receiving a number of shopper complaints alleging that McCarroll, working beneath the identify Erin McCarroll Insurance coverage Providers, accepted premium funds from shoppers and allegedly used the funds for her private bills.

Investigation

The investigation uncovered a sequence of incidents that transpired between June 2017 and November 2019. Throughout this era, McCarroll purportedly did not remit premium funds from the ten victims. These victims had been unaware that McCarroll had misappropriated their premium funds and had not secured the insurance coverage protection they believed they’d.

The victims on this case had been primarily contractors and small enterprise homeowners who had been legally obligated to offer staff’ compensation protection for his or her staff to safeguard towards work-related accidents. Moreover, in addition they sought and remitted funds to McCarroll for common legal responsibility insurance policies, which had been by no means obtained. The absence of those insurance policies uncovered the victims to potential uninsured claims and substantial monetary losses.

McCarroll employed a misleading tactic by producing and distributing fraudulent certificates of insurance coverage. These fraudulent certificates served to falsely point out proof of legitimate insurance coverage protection, enabling the victims to bid on contracts with the idea that they’d the insurance coverage insurance policies they’d bought from McCarroll.

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