A former San Antonio insurance agent has been sentenced to five years in prison and ordered to pay more than $45,000 for dozens of insurance fraud cases.
The Texas Department of Insurance said that Dermaine Clark stole the identities of dozens of people and used them to open fraudulent life insurance policies. He would make the initial premium payments on the policies in order to collect commissions from the insurance company.
According to the TDI, Clark tried the scam 49 times in 2009, stealing more than $32,000 in commissions. He even submitted one life insurance application in the name of a woman who’d been dead for three months.
“It’s the kind of unscrupulous crime that puts a drag on the entire insurance system,” said Chris Davis, TDI fraud director. “When an agent with access to people’s most personal information tries to game the system, there will be consequences.”
Clark was apparently an equal-opportunity thief. During his sentencing, TDI prosecutor Nicole Thornbro said that while Clark was being investigated for stealing insurance commissions, he was also stealing profits from a restaurant he was managing. Part of the restitution he was ordered to pay was to the restaurant owners.
