Insurance Frauds Forum

Charles Keith Phillips, 44, of Hurricane, has pleaded guilty to one felony count of insurance fraud for his involvement in disposing of his wife's minivan by pushing it over a hill on Poplar Fork Road in January 2007, state Insurance Commissioner Jane Cline said.

Phillips' plea agreement includes making $15,602 restitution to Nationwide Insurance Co. When sentenced, he faces one to 10 years in a state penitentiary and a fine of up to $10,000, Cline's office said.

BARRIE –Police in Barrie believe a multimillion-dollar fire in the city's downtown was deliberately set to stage an insurance fraud.

A late-night blaze in early December was preceded by a loud explosion in a restaurant housed in a historic downtown building that dated back to 1877.

There were no injuries, but more than 40 people had to be evacuated from several apartments above the Royal Thai Cuisine restaurant.

LOS ANGELES - Twelve state Blue Cross and Blue Shield health insurance plans have sued a group of Southern California health care clinics, physicians and others they say are involved in an elaborate scheme to perform unnecessary surgeries and bilk insurers out of millions of dollars.

The suit was filed in cooperation with state and federal authorities, including the FBI, which had previously filed criminal charges against some of the defendants.

NEW YORK - When Basdeo Somaipersaud's body was found in his favorite park in 1998, his family assumed he cracked his head during one of his drinking binges. But an autopsy detected small puncture wounds on his torso, and a sedative sometimes used to treat schizophrenia in his system.

Authorities now say Somaipersaud was injected with lethal doses of the sedative chlorpormazine while he was in a defenseless, drunken stupor _ and then his killers tried to cash in on his life insurance policy.