Crooked Virginia Insurance Agent Pleads Guilty to Insurance Fraud

A Virginia insurance agent, who also owned her own insurance company in Cumberland County, Va., will be spending the next five years on supervised probation for swindling a finance company and have to pay more than $141,500 in restitution for funds she obtained through fraudulent contracts.

Terry L. McAbee, a licensed property and casualty insurance agent, owned McAbee & Associates Insurance Agency, LLC. As part of her business, she wrote premium finance contracts for clients to obtain loans to assist them with paying premiums on their insurance policies. Between January and August 2012, McAbee forged and uttered 24 fraudulent premium finance contracts. As a result of those fake contracts, she received $141,510.48 in premium finance drafts.

The fraudulent contracts were submitted to South Carolina-based Johnson and Johnson Preferred Financing, Inc. (JJPF) who contacted the Virginia State Corporation Commission’s Bureau of Insurance (BOI). A joint investigation by the BOI, the Virginia State Police (VSP) Insurance Fraud Unit and the Office of the Attorney General (OAG) revealed she used the funds for house payments, medical expenses, as well as other personal and business expenses.

As a result of the investigation led by BOI Senior Investigator Linwood Bennett Jr., VSP Special Agent Matthew Okuley and OAG Assistant Attorney General James E. Schliessmann, McAbee pleaded guilty to three felony charges in the Cumberland County Circuit Court on July 22, 1013. She also surrender her P&C license and agency license. She was sentenced to two years for one count of Forgery, two years for one count of Uttering and two years for one count of Obtain Money by False Pretenses. These sentences are to run consecutively for a total of six years. The six years were suspended for a period of five years on the condition of good behavior. During this time, McAbee will be on supervised probation she must pay court costs within a year, make full restitution to JJPF, and submit to DNA analysis.

Source: Virginia State Police Insurance Fraud Program