Insurance agent took out policies in clients’ names, made himself beneficiary, feds say

An insurance agent swindled clients and his employer by taking out life insurance policies in clients’ names without their permission and reaping commission in Virginia, federal officials said.

Joseph O’Carroll III, 52, was sentenced to 15 months in prison and ordered to pay more than $60,000 in restitution in connection with the insurance fraud scheme, the U.S. Attorney’s Office of the Eastern District of Virginia said in a May 20 news release.

McClatchy News reached out to his attorney May 21 and did not immediately receive a response.

O’Carroll is accused of using clients’ personal information to take out insurance policies without their consent, then forging their signatures and listing himself as the beneficiary on at least one policy.

The scheme took place from August 2017 to March 2020, prosecutors said.

In return for opening policies for his clients, O’Carroll received commission and incentive payments from his employer, officials said in court documents.

In one case, the insurance agent is accused of telling Virginia investigators how he took advantage of a client’s fragile emotional state to commit fraud.

“O’Carroll admitted that the client was ‘out of it’ at the time due to the death of the client’s wife, and ultimately admitted that he wrote that policy and others to assist himself in winning a 2019 incentive trip to the Riviera Maya in Mexico from his employer,” officials said.

He set up the plans to withdraw the premium payments from his account and his clients’ accounts, but when he failed to make some of the payments, he posed as the clients to cancel the policies, federal officials said.

He continued to open additional fraudulent accounts to earn commission at work, prosecutors said.

In one case, a client asked him to roll over about $60,000 into a new retirement account. But O’Carroll is accused of depositing more than $57,000 of that into his own bank account and using the money for “personal expenses,” officials said.

He pleaded guilty to mail fraud in January.

O’Carroll is from North Chesterfield, part of the Richmond metropolitan area.

This story was originally published May 21, 2024 at 4:02 PM with the headline "Insurance agent took out policies in clients’ names, made himself beneficiary, feds say."