Iowa man gets 21 months for filing bogus property claims following disasters
Fraud adds 5%-10% to the overall amount in claims paid after a disaster, according to the National Insurance Crime Bureau.
An Iowa man will serve a 21-month prison sentence and pay $125,003.68 in restitution for attempting to defraud State Farm on two separate occasions years apart, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Iowa.
Timothy D. Sletten, who was also ordered to pay a $50,000 fine, filed a property claim on his residential rental properties after a tornado hit Marshalltown, Iowa, in 2018, according to the U.S. attorney’s office. To ensure his fraudulent claim was successful, Sletten provided fake work invoices to the claims professional.
In 2020, a powerful windstorm struck Marshalltown. Once again, Sletten claimed to have suffered storm damages at his rental properties and submitted fake invoices to State Farm to further his scheme.
In total, Sletten has wrongfully collected more than $180,000 from State Farm, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
It was after this 2020 claim that the insurance carrier grew suspicious and began its investigation. Eventually, the company began denying disaster-related claims filed by Sletten. In January 2021, the Iowa Insurance Division’s Fraud Bureau began investigating the landlord.
According to the Coalition Against Insurance Fraud, property and casualty lines (excluding auto and workers’ comp) lose an average of $45 billion annually to fraudsters.
Further, fraud adds 5%-10% to the overall amount in claims paid after a disaster, according to the National Insurance Crime Bureau. During 2021, P&C carriers paid an additional $4.6 billion-$9.2 billion in disaster claims because of fraud, according to the NICB.
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