Kansas Ins. Dept. Creates Fraud Unit

Kansas Ins. Dept. Creates Fraud Unit

By Michael Ha

NU Online News Service, Nov. 3, 10:20 a.m. EST?The Kansas Insurance Department has launched a fraud unit, giving it the authority to investigate and prosecute cases independently without county attorneys or the state attorney general's office.

"We now have a unit in our legal division that is specifically dedicated to investigating and prosecuting insurance fraud," Don Brown, the department spokesperson, told National Underwriter.

Mr. Brown noted that while his department previously had lawyers examining insurance fraud, "they had no authority under our Kansas laws to actually go into the courtroom and do the prosecution at any level, whether it be district court or state court."

He continued that the jurisdiction resided either with locally elected county attorneys across the state or with consumer-protection attorneys at the state attorney general's office.

But in creating this fraud unit, the insurance department reached an agreement with the state attorney general. "Our own attorneys and investigators are now appointed as special assistant attorneys general, with all investigation and prosecution authority in statutes for the attorney general's office," he said.

Mr. Brown noted that this agreement allows the new fraud unit to be a turnkey operation from accepting complaints to investigating to prosecuting.

"It allows people who know insurance and insurance fraud to follow cases all the way through to the final courtroom and the prosecution phase," he said. "We no longer have to go plead our case to a county attorney or to another state agency if we want prosecution."

He also predicted the new unit would help insurance fraud cases receive more attention in Kansas. "To be honest with you, the prosecution side was practically nonexistent before this, only because it's hard for us as the insurance department to go make a case to a county attorney who may be busy prosecuting murders and drug deals," he said. "So we feel insurance fraud will now get much more attention, because our own staff who knows what's going on will be able to handle it directly."

Mr. Brown observed that in reviewing records of the past four years, not a single insurance fraud case has had state-level prosecution.

"There have been a few scattered ones that reached the level of a local prosecutor taking the case to court, but it had to be a slam-dunk case for them because they don't have the expertise or the research ability in insurance," Mr. Brown said. "There will now be a lot more strong cases made because our attorneys are professionals in insurance regulations."

He remarked that his department will be keeping watch across the board, "everything from insurance agents, consumers and insurance companies who may be putting forth fraudulent practices."