Snohomish insurance agent accused of stealing $750k
Published 1:30 am Saturday, November 14, 2020
SEATTLE — A Snohomish insurance agent accused of stealing $750,000 from clients pleaded not guilty Friday in federal court in Seattle.
Vicki Boser, 57, is charged with five counts of wire fraud after allegedly stealing three-quarters of a million dollars in premium payments from clients. Boser owned and operated InsuranceTek, Inc. She’s accused of issuing fake certificates of insurance to some of those companies. A Jan. 19 trial date has been set.
She was first licenced to sell insurance in Washington in 1991, according to state insurance commissioners’ office records. She founded InsuranceTek, Inc. in 2003. The company specialized in assisting small businesses that work in high-risk fields, including private investigators, process servers, mortgage and field service companies, and security guard companies, in securing insurance policies to cover their operations. The fraud is alleged to have occurred between 2014 and 2016.
Boser would find companies willing to insure the high-risk companies, and if necessary, find a company to finance the premium payments, according to a press release from the U.S. Attorney Generals office in Seattle. By law, she was required to collect the premium payments from the clients and pay them over to the insurance companies.
“Instead, she pocketed some of the payments, created false insurance certificates, and led the high-risk companies to believe they were insured,” according to a press release describing the allegations. “In some instances, the insurance companies cancelled the insurance for lack of payment, but Boser received the notice and hid it from the insured. The insurance premiums were tens of thousands of dollars — in one case, more than $100,000. Boser used the money for her personal expenses, including spending a great deal of money at a casino resort.”
Her clients were from across the country, and many were family-owned businesses. Some only learned their insurance policies had been cancelled when they contacted the companies about renewing the policies, according to the allegations.
The investigation was triggered when the Washington State Insurance Commissioner’s Office received complaints. The FBI also is involved in the investigation.
In a seven-page order signed by state insurance commissioner Mike Kreidler, Boser and her company were barred from selling insurance in Washington state in January of 2017.
That investigation found that Boser fraudulently signed policies on behalf of clients without their knowledge, overcharged clients and failed to send clients’ premium payments to the insurance companies.
Eric Stevick: stevick@heraldnet.com.
