Equine insurance agent charged in alleged $1.3 million fraud

A Middletown, Rhode Island, insurance agent and agency owner who specializes in providing equine insurance coverage has been charged in U.S. District Court in Providence with allegedly orchestrating a scheme that defrauded customers, insurance companies and finance companies of approximately $1.3 million.

Wire fraud, aggravated ID theft

Randall N. Levesque, owner of Equine Insurance Services, LLC, and Randall Levesque Agency, was charged by way of a federal criminal complaint with wire fraud and aggravated identity theft.

Related: Illinois insurance agent pleads guilty to fraud scheme, money laundering

Prosecutors alleged that Levesque:

• Overbilled and double-billed customers when billing their credit cards for premiums due on policies, some of which clients did not request or did not agree to finance, at times forging customers’ signatures;
• Collected premiums on insurance policies issued by at least two insurance companies but, upon receipt from customers, did not forward the payments to the insurance companies; and
• At times, financed premiums and received funds on behalf of customers without the customers’ consent or knowledge, and submitted financing agreements to finance companies for fictitious customers, for whom there were no policies.

As alleged, Levesque collected but did not remit to insurance companies over $800,000 in premiums; fraudulently obtained over $500,000 in financed premiums from at least two finance companies; and charged customers’ credit cards at a total of approximately $80,000 for premiums that he failed to provide to insurance companies.

Related: Former insurance brokerage company CFO sentenced to prison

teven A. Meyerowitz, Esq., (smeyerowitz@meyerowitzcommunications.com) is the director of FC&S Legal, the editor-in-chief of the Insurance Coverage Law Report, and the founder and president of Meyerowitz Communications Inc.