This month, a Broward County insurance adjuster was arrested on two felony counts of unlicensed public adjusting.
Florida’s Chief Financial Officer Jimmy Patronis announced the arrest of Giorgio Giovanni Gonzalez, owner of Maximum Claims Recovery, Inc. Patronis, in a news release, said Gonzalez defrauded two policyholders out of $34,424. The criminal charges allege Gonzalez secured insurance adjusting contracts for adjusting and insurance appraisal services without having a Florida license to do so and then withheld money from two policyholders.
“When unlicensed public adjusters take advantage of the system, every policyholder in the state loses. Insurance fraud drives up rates and devalues the professionalism of honest public adjusters and insurance agents,” Patronis said in a prepared statement. “As Florida’s insurance market begins to improve little by little, we will continue to assure companies and policyholders that fraud will not be tolerated in our state. Kudos to my Criminal Investigations Division fraud detectives for doing the hard work to bring this fraudster to justice. Also, thanks to the Broward State Attorney’s Office for prosecuting this case and protecting the rights of Florida consumers.”
The cases center on instances in September and December when the Florida Department of Financial Services (DFS) Criminal Investigations Division (CID) that two victims alleged Gonzalez represented himself as a licensed insurance adjuster to help the victims address damage to their homes sustained in 2022. Gonzalez even memorialized the work in writing in two contracts.
According to the CID, Gonzalez received over $44,000 in settlements and deposited the money in his company’s account. Ultimately, though, Gonzalez did not provide the settlement money to the clients, eventually leading to the investigation and arrest after CID investigators reviewed the records.
“NAPIA believes in the ethical practice of public insurance adjusting and applauds all efforts of the Florida DFS to assure that only licensed public adjusters are allowed to assist consumers who have sustained first-party property loss,” said Brian Goodman, general counsel for the National Association of Public Insurance Adjusters.
This is not Gonzalez’s first run-in with the law. On April 25, 2013, the Chief Financial Officer for the state of Florida suspended him for failing to maintain a surety bond. Furthermore, Gonzalez was arrested on June 19, 2023, by CID detectives in Miami-Dade County for a similar act. In that case, Giorgio Giovanni Gonzalez was charged with one count of acting as a public adjuster and one count of grand theft.
He was arrested and charged at the Broward County Main Jail, where he was already incarcerated for the 2023 arrest.
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