A week after discovering it had been scammed out of half a million dollars or more, the filing of loss was made.
Sedgwick County officials have filed a property insurance claim a week after it discovered it had been scammed. The county had fallen victim to a scam and, as a result, had lost over half a million dollars to the scammers.
The county determined that it had lost $566,088.90 as a result of internal fraudulent activity.
Sedgwick County was asked for the personnel file of one of its employees in connection with this property insurance claim. The fraud was first discovered by members of the county financial staff members. That occurred on October 25, 2016. Two days later, the counter had created an insurance claim that included a detailed description of the scam that led to the loss. The claim was filed with a Zurich North America employee.
Mick McBride, county risk manager, filed a property loss notice with Lexington Insurance Company on October 28, 2016. The filing was for loss resulting from theft and the situation was described within that document as well.
The property insurance claim was then stepped up into an investigation into what happened.
Three days later, Helen Rasmussen of Zurich contacted McBride with an inquiry into whether the loss from theft had resulted from “a failure by an employee to faithfully perform duties as prescribed by law.” McBride responded with a proof of loss fifteen days later.
On November 21, McBridge was asked for more information from Rasmussen. More complete details regarding the facts of the claim, supporting documents and a “copy of the employee’s personnel file” and “a copy of the statute or law that your employee failed to comply with.” The requested information was supplied on December 6.
Those specific details are not yet being released to the media as the Sheriff’s Office and Assistant Counselor Michael North determined that making the information public could harm the “pending criminal investigation,” resulting from this property insurance claim, said North. McBride has been working hard to ensure that all the necessary information will be provided to the insurance company for the filing.
