The state attorney general has charged 25 people in an insurance fraud sweep.
The cases span fraud charges related to false claims filed with car insurance agents, life insurance companies, rental insurers and disability offices. Several people were charged for lying about hitting deer.
At least one of those charged was from Butler County. 37-year-old Katherine Yova of Slippery Rock is accused of lying on insurance forms when asked if any driver or household member had ever been arrested. Yova has been arrested about 30 times in the past 15 years. She received roughly $3,000 in a damage settlement from a single-car accident.
“Any Pennsylvanian with insurance is hurt by this type of fraud – it inflates rates and causes all of us to pay more,” said Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro. “It’s wrong, and my Insurance Fraud Section is taking action to stop it. We will aggressively prosecute anyone who breaks the law by providing false information to an insurance company.”
The charges announced Friday involve some of the most common types of insurance fraud. In one case, Rico Collins, 48, of Blairsville, Indiana County, was charged with theft by deception, insurance fraud, forgery and other charges. It is alleged that Collins filed a renter’s claim in August 2016 for jewelry, cash, electronics, CDs, DVDs and an R & B record collection that he reported were stolen from his apartment while he was out of town for three weeks. Collins listed his total value of loss at $25,000.
The insurance company paid the defendant $11,209 and told Collins they could not pay more on the claim without receipts. Collins submitted receipts and the insurance company found two of the receipts to be fraudulent—one for the R & B record collection totaling $7,200 and the other for 188 DVDs totaling $2,657. Collins was arrested on February 26, 2019.
The sweep was conducted by the Insurance Fraud Section’s Western Regional Office during the months of February and March 2019. Since Shapiro took office in Jan. 2017, the Office of Attorney General’s Insurance Fraud section has charged 452 persons with insurance fraud cases.
A full list of the 25 defendants charged in this sweep can be found here.
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