Former insurance broker Gary Whipps has been sentenced to two years imprisonment after pocketing £46,125 through falsely representing a firm’s contract documents to increase the insurance premiums cost being paid by his clients.
According to the report of the City of London Police, Whipps had sourced insurance for firms that managed amusement parts as well as those that offered rentals on inflatable play equipment.
From Jan 2018 until Dec 2020, the former insurance broker edited genuine contract documents for 26 clients to increase the premiums that they were paying. Afterwards, he paid the insurer the right amount of premiums and took the excess money.
Whipps had worked for a broker that sold policies from a wholesale broker and offered insurance for other brokers to buy on behalf of their clients. Its compliance team first discovered Whipps’ actions when an owner of a bouncy castle hire firm had contacted them about an insurance policy they bought from him in April 2019.
This was followed by other contracts that were obtained by the broker which showed Whipps’ editing work on the cost of the premiums in 38 insurance policies sold from February 2018 until June 2020, with the increase in values ranging from £100 to £27,286.
In June 2020, Whipps was suspended and the broker referred the case to the City of London Police’s Insurance Fraud Enforcement Department (IFED) in July. Following the IFED’s investigation, Whipps was arrested in November.
After pleading guilty to 39 counts of fraud by false representation at the Chelmsford Crown Court last March 2024, he was then sentenced to two years imprisonment on June 5 following the referral of the case to the IFED. The proceedings that will be reclaiming the overall loss will be taking place in December.
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