BAKERSFIELD – Apparently 38-year-old Valerie Ann Verdugo thought her plan to defraud an insurance company was foolproof. No other explanation seems credible after it has come out that she benefited from her scheme for over ten years.
It ended on Friday when she was arraigned on felony insurance fraud charges for obtaining insurance coverage without paying for the policies over those years.
The specific charges were one count of grand theft and one count of embezzlement.
According to a CDI press release, during her employment as an insurance agent, “Verdugo would allow her own personal auto and homeowner policies to lapse when premiums were due and then simply write a new policy with minor changes to avoid detection by auditors. When the premium was not paid and the policy lapsed again, Verdugo would allegedly repeat the transaction scheme.”
The investigation revealed that she also perpetrated the same scheme for family members and friends in a total of over 70 policies. The result was insurance coverage that was not paid for and $11,000 in uncollected premiums.
Verdugo’s insurance license was suspended in April of 2016.
