Former insurance agent sentenced for fraud

Jan. 27--MONTEVIDEO -- The former owner of Montevideo Insurance Center was ordered to pay $22,723 in restitution to 12 different victims after being convicted of three felony counts of insurance fraud.

Jeremy Lee Olson, 46, of Clarkfield, was also sentenced to five years of supervised probation.

The sentence included 30 days of local confinement in the Chippewa County Jail. However, if Olson pays his restitution, follows his terms of probation and completes 80 hours of community service, he will not have to serve any actual time in jail.

Olson also received a stay of imposition, which means if he completes all the portions of his sentence, the felony convictions may be reduced to misdemeanors on his record.

Olson was charged in April 2017 with four counts of felony insurance fraud, two different felony counts of aggravated forgery and one felony count of issuance of dishonored check.

Olson pleaded guilty to three of the felony insurance fraud charges in a plea agreement, and the remaining charges were dismissed.

According to the court documents, Olson was accepting insurance policy premiums from clients but not applying those payments to the actual policies in 2015 and 2016. This resulted in policies being cancelled and the clients losing coverage without their knowledge. In one case a client who suffered a house fire was unable to collect the full amount for damaged vehicles because the policy had been cancelled. It resulted in a $5,864 loss to the client.

The insurance business was sold in October 2016 and it was then that the new owners started noticing discrepancies in billing and policies handled by Olson.

According to court documents, the Montevideo Police Department and an investigator from the enforcement division of the Minnesota Department of Commerce found evidence of at least $9,234 in missing premiums that were given to Olson but not applied to the insurance policies.

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