Vincent
aided partner to reinstate insurance license |
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State Rep. Jim Vincent
contacted state officials to help a business partner regain his insurance
license just four months after James Tague was barred from selling insurance
for intentionally overcharging clients nearly $15,000. |
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Tennessee Department of
Commerce and Insurance records show that Rep. Vincent met on two occasions in
early 2003 with department officials to try to reinstate the Soddy-Daisy
agent's license. |
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Rep. Vincent, R-Soddy-Daisy,
said he did not ask state officials to do any special favours for Mr. Tague,
with whom he owns real estate. Mr. Tague was once married to Rep. Vincent's
sister. In 2002, one real estate deal Rep. Vincent and Mr. Tague made together
netted them more than $500,000, according to Hamilton County property records. |
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"I asked (state officials)
to give him an interview, and that is all," Rep. Vincent said last week.
"I didn't do anything that I shouldn't have done. He wanted to tell them
his story, and that is what he did. I had absolutely nothing to do with him
getting his license back." |
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The state in September 2002
barred Mr. Tague from selling insurance after an audit found he overcharged or
sold nonexistent policies totalling $14,950 to 11 Hamilton County businesses
over a three-year period, Division of Insurance records show. |
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Numerous efforts to contact Mr.
Tague about this story were unsuccessful. |
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LICENSE REVOKED, RETURNED |
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In 2001, Charles Key, owner of
Key Bonding Co. in Chattanooga, paid Mr. Tague $1,985 for a business liability
insurance policy from State Automobile Mutual Insurance Co., which does not
offer business liability insurance, state records show. |
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Mr. Key, who said he
unknowingly went without liability insurance for more than one year, complained
to the state. The Division of Insurance launched an investigation that resulted
in the audit. Mr. Tague voluntarily surrendered his insurance agent's license
on Nov. 28, 2001, while the investigation was continuing, records show. The
division formally revoked Mr. Tague's license on Sept. 5, 2002, after Mr. Tague
signed a consent order admitting his actions. |
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Rep. Vincent began the process
to regain Mr. Tague's license on Jan. 6, 2003, when he requested a meeting with
Brenda Sechler, the director of agent licensing at the department. She held a
meeting with Rep. Vincent and Mr. Tague two weeks later, and the license
revocation was upheld, records show. |
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Rep. Vincent requested a second
meeting, this time with Department of Commerce and Insurance Commissioner Paula
Flowers. The meeting was held on April 16, 2003, in the Legislative Plaza
office of state Senate Majority Leader Ward Crutchfield, D-Chattanooga, with
Rep. Vincent, but without Mr. Tague. |
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Sen. Crutchfield said he barely
recalls the meeting. |
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"Jim said (Tague) was kin
and that he had made restitution," Sen. Crutchfield said. "I just
told the commissioner what Jim said. I don't know anything about him. I never
met him." |
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Sen. Crutchfield said he often
sets up meetings between state officials, constituents and other lawmakers. |
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"I have a lot of friends
in Chattanooga, and you try to help them out if you can, but I never got
anything out of it," he said. |
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During a 30-minute meeting, Ms.
Flowers said the two lawmakers asked her to relicense Mr. Tague. |
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"They said that Mr. Tague
had made it right, had paid the money back, and that he was having financial
difficulties and couldn't pay his child support," Ms. Flowers said. |
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Ms. Flowers, who has never met
Mr. Tague, said the request by Rep. Vincent and Sen. Crutchfield had no bearing
on her decision to relicense Mr. Tague. |
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"(Legislators) bring
constituent issues to me all the time, on a daily basis, in every area of
regulation that we have in the department, and it doesn't have any
bearing," she said. |
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In an April 17, 2003, memo to
Ms. Flowers, Ms. Sechler said the decision three months earlier to deny Mr.
Tague's licensing request "was based on Mr. Tague's previous activities as
an agent plus information (that) ... complaints were still being filed on Mr.
Tague." |
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Tally Osburn, the manager of
Unitrim, an agency where Mr. Tague wrote some policies, "expressed his
displeasure (with) the possibility Mr. Tague could again be licensed," Ms.
Sechler wrote in an e-mail to Ms. Flowers. |
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"(Mr. Osburn) did want to
go on record that the audit only went back three years and he personally felt
there was more," Ms. Sechler wrote in her e-mail. |
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Commissioner Flowers approved
Mr. Tague's relicensing, with quarterly reporting requirements and only after
she received assurances that he had made full restitution to his clients,
records show. The division reinstated Mr. Tague's license on June 5, 2003. |
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REPAYMENTS QUESTIONED |
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Some clients, however, said
they still are waiting to get paid. |
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Maurice Jackson, owner of
Jackson's Service Center and Sales on Shallowford Road, said he wasn't
reimbursed for $2,452 the state audit showed he overpaid. "I've been
trying to get some help on that, and I haven't been successful," Mr.
Jackson said. "He had taken my full coverage off one of my wreckers
without me knowing it, and I only had liability, and one of them got stolen. I
was so upset, I got another insurance company that handles everything." |
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Ms. Flowers said Mr. Tague
reimbursed Tennessee Valley Insurance Services, which "either issued a
refund check, or they credited the account of the policyholders for the
premiums that were due." |
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Mr. Tague was an officer with
Tennessee Valley Insurance Services when company documents show clients were
reimbursed. Rep. Vincent now runs the company. |
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Paula Wade, a spokeswoman for
the insurance department, said Tennessee Valley Insurance Services last week
confirmed that the reimbursements were made. |
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Records the company submitted
to the state last week indicate repayments or credits were made to Mr. Jackson
and all the other clients. The company provided copies of checks and invoices
but did not include canceled checks to prove the money was actually received. |
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At least one client, who first
agreed to let her name be used for this story but then asked that it be
withheld while she sought legal advice, insisted her company has not been
repaid the $3,053 the audit indicated it had been overcharged. |
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Ms. Flowers said clients may
not have received a refund "because they got a credit on their
account." |
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"They should go back and
check their records, but we are in the process of checking these records from
the agency," she said. |
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Mr. Jackson said he never
received any money or credit from the company. |
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"They told me I wasn't
overcharged," he said. |
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Mr. Jackson told his story to
insurance investigators on Thursday. After the Times Free Press started making
inquiries about Mr. Tague, the division last week reopened the investigation. |
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Ms. Flowers said she doesn't
know why criminal charges weren't pursued against Mr. Tague, whose license was
revoked by Ann Pope, who served as insurance commissioner under former Gov. Don
Sundquist. |
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"Commissioner Pope may
have made a referral," Ms. Flowers said. "We make referrals all the
time. But unless the amount of the fraud is a significant amount, the district
attorneys typically say, 'We are not going to pursue that.'" |
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Hamilton County District
Attorney Bill Cox said his office has no record of any referral from the
Division of Insurance on the matter. |
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Mr. Key, whose complaint
started the investigation, said his money was paid back, but he remains
"displeased." |
"He led me to believe I
was buying a policy that did not exist," Mr. Key said. "They should
have prosecuted him."
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