Local insurance agent under fire

Sarasota Herald Tribune
August 21, 2003

SARASOTA -- State officials are seeking to revoke the license of a local insurance agent who sold bogus policies that left clients with more than $1.2 million in unpaid medical bills.

Bradley Walter Beshore, 54, an accounts executive at HRH of Southwest Florida, was served Wednesday with a complaint filed by the Florida Department of Financial Services.

The state says Beshore sold the fraudulent plans to at least six local businesses since June 2001 for Meridian Benefit Inc. The New Jersey-based company had represented itself as an administrator for a health benefits plan, but it never held a license to sell insurance in Florida or to act as an administrator.

Meridian sought federal bankruptcy protection in its home state in May. Later that month, Beshore was one of three HRH employees ordered by Florida insurance regulators to stop selling Meridian policies.

The complaint says Beshore violated the Florida Insurance Code and rules of the Department of Financial Services, actions that could result in his license being suspended or revoked. Beshore won't necessarily lose his license. He can request a hearing or negotiate with state officials. But it will be revoked if he fails to respond to the complaint within 21 days, a state spokesman said.

The state document said Beshore was disciplined in an unrelated matter in February 1997.

He did not return a call for comment Wednesday.

John B. Cunningham, HRH's president, declined to comment and referred questions to the agency's parent company, Hilb, Rogal and Hamilton Co. in Glen Allen, Va. A Hilb, Rogal and Hamilton spokeswoman declined to comment, saying the company's attorney hadn't seen the complaint.

The state is continuing to investigate HRH, said Justin Glover, a spokesman for the state financial services department. He declined to say whether charges were pending against Cunningham or another employee named in the earlier order. "It was Mr. Beshore that we believe was selling the policies to the clients," Glover said.

Glover said Beshore in 1997 was fined $500 and his license was put on probation for six months because he failed to divulge information that could have affected his application for an additional insurance license. Those documents were subsequently sealed by the courts. Beshore agreed to withdraw that application.

Beshore has been licensed to sell insurance in Florida since February 1994. Since February 2001, state regulators have shut down 16 unlicensed entities and their affiliates after receiving complaints about unpaid claims. The department has also sought administrative action against 76 insurance agents.

News of the complaint against Beshore on Wednesday didn't surprise Peter Howard, president and chief executive of The Florida Center for Child and Family Development. That nonprofit, which combines the former Family Counseling Center and the former Child Development Center, has $645,000 in unpaid medical bills left from the debacle.

Both of those groups bought their policies through Beshore.

Howard said he knew something was up Tuesday when he received by certified mail a letter from HRH asking policyholders to submit to the company unpaid bills and other documents. Howard already had.

"It's an absolute nightmare; it's horrible," Howard said. "Collection agencies are chasing after the employees."

Howard said he wants HRH to pay the delinquent bills. If not, they could land back in the center's lap. "We feel that we have a contract with our employees to purchase insurance, that we are liable to our employees to pay their medical bills. If no one else will, we will pay them."

It's happened before. Beshore had sold the Child Development Center a policy in 2000 through a partly self-insured plan offered by a Texas company that never paid $49,000 in medical bills, Howard said.

The Child Development Center picked up the tab that time after asking HRH to do so. Howard said the agents refused. He chose to stick with HRH, he said, because he was assured that nothing like that would happen again.

"I'm banging my head against the wall about it," he said. "I went back because I thought it wasn't going to happen again."