It has now been revealed that the company spent taxpayer funds on a $10 million life policy for the CEO.
According to the latest insurance news from the provincial government in Ontario, Canada, ORNGE, a company that is already wracked with scandal in terms of its taxpayer money spending, used public funds to purchase a $10 million life policy for Dr. Chris Mazza, the former CEO of the company.
That coverage is estimated to have cost taxpayers $450,000 according to the Tory report.
The insurance news deepened when it was revealed that the policy was taken out through one of the company’s subsidiaries, ORNGE Global GP, Inc. This, according to a provincial government release. The company has been having a tremendous amount of its dirty laundry aired since the start of the scandal.
This most recent insurance news discovery is only the latest in a long chain of excess from ORNGE.
The air ambulance agency is increasingly troubled with each new level that is discovered from the massive scandal. According to Conservative MPP Frank Klees (Newmarket-Aurora), the provincial government now needs to work on ending the policy – which came with a one-time $450,000 premium paid for by taxpayers – so that they can salvage whatever remaining cash value they can from it.
Klees has been the primary critic from the Conservative party in terms of the ORNGE scandal, which has been making insurance news and other business headlines and that lead to a massive criminal investigation by the Ontario Provincial Police. He stated that he first discovered the policy within some of the documents that he received about the case.
When speaking to the legislature’s public accounts committee, he asked “Where did the $450,000 come from to pay that premium?” as the investigation into ORNGE continued, after a number of investigative insurance news stories that were published in one of the city’s newspapers lead to the departure of the former CEO, and of the creation of a new board of directors.
The policy at the center of this insurance news was taken out on November 29, 2010, with Sun Life Assurance, through ORNGE Global GP Inc., which is one of the air ambulance company’s for profit subsidiaries.
