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Flood Insurance

This archive displays posts tagged as relevant to fraud in the flood insurance program. You may also be interested in the following pages:

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Catch of the Week: AECOM

Posted  10/30/23
Flooded Traffic Light Sign
Last week's Department of Justice (DOJ) Catch of the Week goes to Dallas-based architecture and engineering firm AECOM.  Last Tuesday (October 24), the company agreed to pay $11.8 million to settle charges it violated the False Claims Act by improperly billing the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) for disaster assistance funding in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. Under the Robert T. Stafford Disaster...

Catch of the Week: Archdiocese of New Orleans pays $1 million to Resolve Katrina-Related Allegations, Highlighting Importance of Enforcement in Disaster Recovery Fraud

Posted  11/19/21
New Orleans Jackson Square
We’ve covered this before: natural disasters and fraud against the government often go hand in hand. The government, through agencies and programs such the FEMA and the federally-backed flood and crop insurance programs, can distribute enormous sums of money very quickly in the wake of hurricanes, floods, tornadoes, and the like. Distributing lots of money quickly after natural disasters gets immediate help to...

Catch of the Week – Sour Grapes: Fruit-Broker Squashed for Role in Defrauding Federal Crop Insurance

Posted  08/13/21
Grapes
The manager of a California fruit broker learned the hard way that it doesn’t pay to assist in defrauding the Federal Crop Insurance Program.  The manager, at the behest of a grape farmer who sold crops through the broker, altered the farmer’s records to reflect lower-than-actual sales.  The falsified records assisted the farmer to claim crop-losses falsely and receive insurance-reimbursements funded by the...

January 17, 2020

Citibank, N.A. will pay $18 million to the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency to resolve claims that it violated the Flood Disaster Protection Act by failing to "force-place" flood insurance on behalf of borrowers as required by law.  OCC

February 20, 2019

New York City will pay $5.3 million to resolve claims that the city sought FEMA recovery funds for certain city-owned vehicles claimed to have been damaged during Superstorm Sandy.  However, the city provided inadequate training to officials regarding the identification of vehicles damaged as a result of the storm, and officials made no effort to inspect the vehicles or determine whether the claimed damage was, in fact, a result of Sandy.  Many of the vehicles for which the city sought full replacement costs had been nonoperational prior to the storm.  USAO SDNY

Destruction from Recent Hurricanes Could Rain Down Fraud

Posted  09/28/17
By the C|C Whistleblower Lawyer Team Hurricane Irma has ripped through Florida and is expected to have caused about $50 billion of damage, with Harvey and Maria causing billions more. Most private insurance policies limit coverage to damage from fire, wind, and a variety of other catastrophic causes. However, almost no private insurers in the United States cover any damage caused to homes by flood waters. Flood...

Justice Department Announces Department-Wide Response to Disaster Fraud

Posted  09/27/17
By the C|C Whistleblower Lawyer Team Closely following a series of destructive hurricanes from which parts of the U.S. are only beginning the long road to recovery, the Justice Department issued a memorandum to each of the nation’s U.S. Attorney’s Offices and to law enforcement agencies setting department-wide policies for responding to disaster fraud. The memo, announced yesterday, provides guidance on...

September 12, 2017

Partner Anne Hartman was quoted in the Bloomberg BNA article, Hurricane Relief Contractors Can Expect More Fraud Scrutiny.  Click here to read the article.

Beware of Fraud in the Aftermath of Hurricane Harvey

Posted  09/5/17
By the C|C Whistleblower Lawyer Team As the floodwaters begin to recede in the aftermath of Hurricane Harvey and the torturous clean-up effort begins, there is a new threat emerging from this latest environmental disaster -- fraud. It is a concern not only for the victims of Harvey, but also for the volunteers trying to help with the relief effort. This from a recent NPR interview with Corey Amundson, the United...

January 26, 2017

New Jersey filed two separate actions against home improvement companies and their owners alleging they used deceptive business practices in order to obtain $1.4 million in federal relief funds from 51 homeowners who paid them to repair and elevate their storm-damaged properties. Named in the first Complaint are father and son contractors Paul Zaidinski, Sr., and Paul Zaidinski, Jr., and their Point Pleasant-based company, Shore HL, Inc., which does business as “Shore House Lifters.” Named in the second Complaint are contractor George Rex and his Pleasantville-based companies, Atlantic Coast Housing Lifting, LLC and George Rex Construction, LLC. The defendants engaged in “unconscionable consumer practices” that include taking money from consumers to renovate, rebuild, and/or elevate Sandy-damaged homes and then failing to begin work, performing the work in a substandard manner, and/or abandoning unfinished projects without returning for weeks, months, or at all, according to the State’s Complaints. NJ