Insurance agent charged with theft

Branko Cekarmis, a 37-year-old insurance agent from Kent, Wash., has been charged with four counts of theft for allegedly misappropriating thousands of dollars from his customers.

When Cekarmis, an Allstate agent, collected premium payments, he was supposed to deposit the checks and cash into a specific bank account managed by Allstate. The company would then apply those premiums to the customers' policies.

But 20 times between early February 2009 and late January 2010, Cekarmis either failed to deposit the money or failed to properly allocate it to the appropriate customers' policies. In some cases, he only allocated part of the payment to a policy. In others, he put the money toward a different customer's policy.

All told, he's believed to have misappropriated $7,767.

Allstate's corporate security department investigated the matter and sent the case to state Insurance Commissioner Mike Kreidler's Special Investigations Unit.

On June 3rd, the insurance commissioner's office revoked Cekarmis' insurance license. On Monday, Cekarmis was charged in King County Superior Court with four counts of second-degree theft.

Life expectancy table

We recently heard from an unhappy consumer who was searching our agency website:

"Could not find the life expectancy chart. As a result, have lost all of this time and effort -- thereby reducing my life expectancy."

Happy to help: Here's the life expectancy table. (It's not a new one; it's been in effect since late 2004.)

Job opening: life and health insurance compliance analyst

We're looking for a life and health insurance compliance analyst to work in our Consumer Protection division in Tumwater, Wash.

The person will help investigate consumer complaints against insurance companies and answer consumer questions about insurance issues. The person will also be a technical expert on helping consumers appeal insurance denials, as well as on writing and formatting consumer publications for the Web.

For more details, including salary and application process, please see the job listing. Deadline is 4:59 p.m. on Aug. 19, 2011.

We're also still accepting applications for a financial examiner job, but time's running out. The deadline for applying for that job is Friday at 5 p.m.

To keep up with any job openings at our agency, please check our jobs page frequently.

Health care reform update

Here's an update on health care reform from Barb Flye, our senior health policy advisor:

A song about insurance fraud? Really? Really.

It turns out that someone has actually written a song about, yes, insurance fraud.

A reporter for the Seattle Weekly (thanks, Jonathan) turned us on to the tune.

Insurance agent pleads guilty to theft for selling bogus insurance

Brenda MacLaren-Beattie, a longtime insurance agent in Des Moines, Wash., has pleaded guilty to first-degree theft for selling fake insurance to oral surgeons in two states.

Our investigation found that MacLaren-Beattie, 67, sold thousands of dollars in fake business-insurance policies, often issuing counterfeit certificates of insurance to doctors and clinics. She pleaded guilty yesterday in King County Superior Court to eight counts of first-degree theft, a felony.

From late 2001 through 2009, she issued fake insurance to 25 oral surgeons in Washington and 16 in Oregon. During that time, she is believed to have collected more than $532,000 in premiums for fictitious insurance policies. Her insurance license expired in 2009.

In some cases -- a lost camera, some water damage -- she paid out small insurance claims. One of her clients became suspicious after a claim check was issued by MacLaren-Beattie, rather than from an insurance company.

The fictitious policies were for business owners' general liability insurance. General liability insurance typically covers things like slip-and-fall accidents, employee theft, and damage to rented property.

Sentencing in King County Superior Court is expected later this month.

New guidelines expand preventive coverage for women

New guidelines issued by the federal government require health plans to cover many preventive services for women with no additional cost.
The Affordable Care Act requires health plans to include preventive services with no cost-sharing (ie. deductibles, copays, etc.). The guidelines issued yesterday describe the specific preventive services for women that apply. They include:

Well-woman visits
Screening for gestational diabetes
Human papillomavirus (HPV) DNA testing for women 30 years and older
Sexually-transmitted infection counseling
HIV screening and counseling
FDA-approved contraception methods and counseling
Breastfeeding support, supplies, and counseling
Domestic violence screening and counseling

Here's a chart showing the specific preventive service, a description of the service, and frequency (ie. whether the coverage is annual or for a specific occurrence.)