Insurance Agent Found Guilty Of Insurance Fraud By A Walton County Jury Is Sentenced To Serve 5 Years In Prison.

Atlanta,GA(WorkersCompensation.com) - A two-year investigation by the Georgia State Board of Workers’ Compensation’s Enforcement Division led to a Suwanee insurance agent being arrested and charged with felony Insurance Fraud and Forgery in the First Degree in Walton County. Reichel was previously convicted of multiple felony counts of Insurance Fraud and Theft by Deception in Gwinnett. According to Enforcement Division Director Melinda Vigna, Jeffrey Alan Reichel, Sr., age 66, operated Core Business Services, Inc. and Ironclad Insurance Agency from his home in Suwanee, Georgia.
In August 2018 the Enforcement Division had received complaints that Jeffrey Reichel, Sr., a Georgia Licensed Insurance Agent, purchased a minimum premium workers’ compensation insurance policy for his Professional Employment Organization, Core Business Services, Inc. Reichel then sold certificates of insurance (COI) as a club membership benefit to multiple business owners. As a result, these business owners and the general contractors for whom they worked for believed they had workers’ compensation insurance coverage. The evidence showed these business owners were uninsured. The investigation revealed that Reichel had stolen hundreds of thousands of dollars from victims who were under the impression they had workers’ compensation insurance coverage. As a result of accepting these COI’s as proof of workers’ compensation coverage, the businesses who accepted them were subject to additional charges for their workers’ compensation insurance and any injuries to employees of the uninsured employers.
In October 2022, a Walton County Jury found Reichel guilty of felony Insurance Fraud and Forgery in the First Degree. On December 7, 2022, Walton County Superior Court Judge Jeffrey L. Foster sentenced Reichel to serve 5 (five) years in prison, 15 (Fifteen) Probation, 160 hours of community service, and a $5,000.00 fine. On February 23, 2021, Reichel plead guilty in the Superior Court of Gwinnett County to multiple felony counts of Insurance Fraud and Theft by Deception. Reichel was sentenced to serve 7 (seven) years on probation and ordered to pay the victims over $26,000.00 in restitution.
The Enforcement Division would like to remind you that workers’ compensation insurance coverage can be verified by using the State Board’s website at www.sbwc.georgia.gov If coverage cannot be verified or the policy holder is not the same name as the business you are searching, you are asked to contact the State Board of Workers’ Compensation’s Enforcement Division at (404) 657-7285 or (800) 533-0682. All other lines of insurance coverage such as auto, home or general liability should be verified directly with the insurance carrier.

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