Ep 17: Church Group Insurance Fraud, Broken Promises & Debt-Free Life

Welcome to Fraud Facts and Life Insurance with Agent Verified, the podcast that dives into the wild world of life insurance gone wrong. Every week we peel back the curtain on real cases of financial chaos and help you spot the red flag before it's too late. We'll share what went wrong, why it happened, and how to protect yourself by working with the right agent. Hey, let's face it. These stories might have ended very differently if only they'd use agentverified.com hey. Hey. Welcome back.

Welcome, you guys. We are Betsy and Javon Spencer with Fraud Facts and Life Insurance Agent Verified. So we are picking back up from last week where we were hearing the story about a family that had thought they had a group policy. So. Oh, and some things turn out well. I know that's what makes it even ickier, to be honest. So let's hear what happened and how to protect.

Yeah, I have, I got notes.

I've got so many, so many things to share.

Yes.

Here we go.

Tonight, new details in a potential fraud case involving life insurance at a church organization the state is now investigating.

We first told you about an Oklahoma family struggling to bury their loved one because they can't get his life insurance money.

The family claims the religious group is to blame. News force Adria Goins is uncovering more details about this case. Adria.

Now, we first told you about the Wright family two weeks ago. Angela Wright says after her husband Tommy died in February, she tried to collect on an insurance policy she purchased through Oklahoma Southwest Jurisdiction Church of God in Christ. But new documents show the policy was terminated because the church group stopped making payments. And we now know the state insurance Commissioner and the AG's office are joining together to investigate. In these documents obtained by News 4 Lincoln Financial claims the church organization purchased a group policy which was terminated on March 31 due to non payment of premiums. The paperwork also states the church group was responsible for paying premiums. Yet Angela Wright says she's been sending checks to the church organization for the past past six years. $70 a month you're paying?

Yes.

According to Lincoln Financial, they never received life insurance payments for Mr. Wright. The letter also says the policy covered the church organization's full time employees, which Wright was not. But we asked the church group's financial adviser about that.

They actually did work for them because they actually volunteered that time working through the church.

But a volunteer is not a paid employee. We reached out again to Bishop Malcolm Colby who oversees the southeast region of the Chur. We asked about the latest letter from the insurance company Hi, this is Adria goins with News 4.

How are you?

Oh, well, how are you?

Bishop Kobe did not respond to any of our questions. Can you tell me how many people are covered on that insurance policy? Instead, he promised a video statement. And we are still waiting for the Wright family. They fear hundreds of other members of the church group could be impacted.

It's not just me, but it's more people, elderly people that's going to find out they don't have life insurance.

Tommy Wright has yet buried. The family says after our first story aired, Bishop Kobe told the family they would pay for the funeral, but that promise has not been fulfilled. Lincoln Financial agreed to pay the life insurance policy in good faith, but the family says it won't accept it and they have now hired an attorney.

Whoa. Well, I, I, you know, now that that last part took a turn. So either you want the money for the policy now, you won't accept it. Like if they paying it like now. Are you trying to prove a point with point? Okay, what are you, what are your takes with this?

First of all, first of all, when a church is doing something dirty, that's just all kinds of wrong. Like, that's just, I mean, I'm a pastor's wife, I'm a pastor's daughter. Grand. My grandfather was a pastor. Like, that is just wrong on all kinds of levels. So, like, that's got me all kind of up in my field about that. Like, that's just wrong, you know. But then I know you're going to say this too. Like, this is why you want your own policy. You don't want a policy under work, under your bank, under your church, like, nowhere. You should have your own personal policy that you're paying premiums directly to that insurance carrier, not through anybody else, but directly to that insurance carrier. And that's the absolute surefire way to make sure that you're protected. So those are just my two initial thoughts, but I know you said you took notes. So what do you, what do you have for us?

The group policy. Number one, paying into it because actually sending a check. Like, I don't, I don't even know how that even became about, like, usually that's from, like he said in the video, that's coming from an employer. So it's like a benefit. Right? So it's like they try to get group coverage. Yeah, that's, that's unheard of. When you're shopping for life insurance, you're trusting someone with your money, your family and your future. But how do you know Your agent is legit. That's where agent verified comes in. We verify insurance agents so you don't have to. Because credentials track records and integrity matters. Don't just pick any agent. Pick one that's agent verified. Search verified agents now at www.agentverified.com because peace of mind should come standard.

I've never, I've never heard of anything. I mean, I guess that's why we're doing this podcast to make sure that people hear about these things because I mean that is just all kinds of wrong on all kinds.

And the sad part is it's already so late and man, I would just hope that they don't lose faith in the church and get the insurance money, know not to do it again and, and move on.

Yeah, well, and hearing that there were other families that might have been in that same position, so hopefully they can still go and find coverage to where they're still going to be taken care of at that point, you know.

Yep. And, and make, and make it aware to others because you clearly know there's others that might be think, you know, you know, how many people would have said I got insurance through my church. Like how do you combat that as an agent to say, oh, you don't really know. You don't know what you really have. Like who, like, you know.

Yeah.

So, man, no, that's rough. So just make sure that you have your own policy. You're working with an agent that is on agent verified. You can check and see their credentials. You know, agent verified. All of our agents are insured, licensed and verified. So that is our first part here. Let's, let's go listen to a few, few commercials here and we'll be back. Need extra income but don't want another dead end side gig. The Aloha program lets you earn from home on your time with real support and real results as a virtual life insurance agent. No fluff, just training leads and a system that works. Ready to boost your income the smart way. Apply now at www.thealoha program.com the Aloha Program. Make more matter more. All right, welcome back, everybody. Well, I want to talk about something today that is near and dear to my heart. I know I've mentioned it a few times, but I always love to come back to it. And that is debt free life. Debt free life, man. It absolutely changed my family's life when we got, when we learned about debt free life and when we saw what it did for our family. And so you might think, hey, what is debt free life? Who's it for? All right. Well, if you have debt, does anyone have debt and want to get it repaid or paid off? You know, usually when I ask that question, it's kind of like asking the question, do you like oxygen? You know? Yes, yes.

Do you have any debt? Right? Do you have anything, you have any.

Debt and are you wanting to pay that off? And so what we do with Debt Free Life is we leverage life insurance to help families pay off their debt in less than half the time and be able to put interest back into their pockets. And so it's pretty exciting the way that we're able to talk with families, understand what their situation is. And usually if people are already trying to get themselves out of debt, then we can help them do that in a much more efficient way and in a much faster way. So like, for instance, if someone's got like a mortgage, they've got car, one or two car payments, they've got a student loan, maybe they've got a couple of credit cards, maybe they just bought a home, so they got some personal loan for some furniture, things like that. So what we do with Debt Free Life is we look at what are you already doing to get that debt paid off. So you might be making an overpayment here, an extra couple, you know, extra hundred or fifty dollars. And so what we do is we look at all the money that you're already paying to get that debt paid off faster and we leverage it inside a life insurance policy and it just accelerates it like crazy. And then instead of waiting, you know, 25, 27 years to get all of your debts and the mortgage paid off, we're able to do that usually in seven to nine years. I think, you know, the longest might be like 11 and a half compared to 29 years. The family was still pretty happy.

I would be very happy.

They were, they were not going to be sad about it. But what's, what's really cool too is like in that case they had, you know, the different debts and things like that. And so all of the debt except for the mortgage was going to be paid off in five years. And then we were just then, now we're actually at the point with that, with that family. This is someone I helped a couple of years ago, where now we're actually doing what we call chunking down the mortgage. And so instead of it actually taking the, what was conservatively going to be 11 and a half years, we're probably going to get that paid off in about eight years. If they keep Kind of in this same process here. And so the other great thing is at the end of that eight and a half years, once everything is paid off, it's not going to be like their bank account is back down to zero. Their bank account, their life insurance policy is still going to have a nice chunk of change that they can use for, you know, extra savings. Sending kids to college, go buy a boat or go buy, you know, now whatever they want to get in the future. They don't have to go into debt to do that. They can fund it themselves. Just the opportunity to help families really get rid of their debt, provide hope, provide a vision for the future where they're not just weighing on what are all these payments going to look like every day. So I get super excited about it. So, yeah, I was.

Real deal.

Let's talk about it. It's the real deal.

Yeah, I know.

You've got one, you got one too, right?

I have two. Two, not just one.

Yep. And we've got, I mean, I think I've got one for like every business. I have my. Yeah, we've got, we've got multiple ones and we leverage them all. It's, it's pretty cool what it can do.

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Let's see what's been going on in the Spencer agency.

Man, I'm peeking. Leaders are growing, showing themselves. That is nice. That is. You know, coming back from our national conference and able to see that. They saw it. They saw the vision. They saw what we have here in this trillion dollar industry. And you know what? They want a piece of it. So it's pretty awesome to be able to help them with that, with the platforms that we have to be able to gear them and push them in the right place. Kind of like why we created this thing four years ago, five years ago. Right.

Kind of. Kind of the whole reason.

Yeah.

Right. So, you know, that's the, that's the fun part and people just making mistakes, that's really the fun part. Like they, they just have to make mistakes in order to. To learn and grow from it. So we call it learning opportunities. No one likes to call it mistakes or failures. We call it learning opportunities. But just watching the agency get super excited over, you know, the new. The new people coming in first, people making their dials, making their right, making their learning opportunities, it's pretty awesome.

So that, that is exciting. That is very exciting. Well, man, congratulations. I know you're growing.

Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. So. All right, well, let me tell you who we don't want on our team. The next individual. Anyone like the next individual that's we're about to show we don't want.

That's true.

We don't want anything like this.

If you're not like them though, welcome. We've got a spot for you.

All right, let's hear it. Only half, but we'll see you next episode. Make it full screen so we can see.

Go here. Where's. There it is. I got too many things in here.

All right, fraud story. Let's hear who done who done it. This is brought to you by agentverified.com Two Miami insurance agents, Yanette Hernandez Suarez and Alexander Antonio Fanata Garcia are facing felony charges after allegedly stealing clients identities and taking out fraudulent life insurance policies. The pair who worked for John Hancock life insurance, are accused of submitting fake applications to earn commissions.

Well, that's not what you need to be doing. That's not what you need to be doing. Come back next week. Let's see what happened to him. All right, guys, we will see you next time. It's Betsy and Javon signing off.

Broad facts and life insurance. Have a good one. See you next time. Peace.

Thanks for listening to fraud, facts and life insurance with AgentVerified. If this episode made you double check your policy or your agent, head over to agentverified.com to find someone you can trust. We'll be back next week with more fraud stories, facts and ways to protect what matters most. So stay smart, stay safe, and always verify your life insurance agent.